Hi, Cassandra. Hi, Martooni.

Is that the Junior Miss America?

Morning all - have a cold, and have not had enough coffee - even more than normal cannot put together an intelligent statment.

Have a good day all.

You know, 'Mudge linked The Reliable Source's account of the after parties Saturday night and boy was I surprised to see Grover Norquist's name listed, albeit as a "hanging-on-until-the-end" personage.......that's about right, I suppose.

Have had this in my head all morning:

http://tinyurl.com/4t674u

Also posted another pony link to the CBlog: http://comics.washingtonpost.com/11_comics_speed-bump.html

Will they continue to ignore me?

Lot of laughing going on over the Chat, but I really liked this one:

"Like, for example, claiming that Obladi-Oblada was the best Beatles song. Dealbreaker."

I'm SO mortified!

I forgot to include some *happy-to-be-past-Monday-and-not-terribly-worried-about-Tuesday-so-obviously-something's-gonna-blindside-me Grover waves* in my early morning post!!!

:-)

Betcha Pam Anderson wishes she *ever* looked as good as Cheryl Tiegs *still* does.

When I saw the pic of Zbigniew Brzezinski my first thought was, 'What was Hugh Hefner doing at this thing?'

G'morning all!

Byoolin-Separated at birth?

No reports of tornado involvement from the Frostrents but a hospital in the system Kim works for was damaged. Give us a shout Kim!

Tempted to go back to bed, 20 degree mornings just don't feel as warm this time of year as they do in January.

oops. photos vanished...will fix that

Thanks boss, I thought I had caught Mudge's refresh affliction.

Joel,
In typical fashion, you are underplaying the the quality of the Pam Anderson photo. Nice side meat shot. With enough practice, you'll be able to work up to quality down blouse photography.

And the minute I saw the post title I had a "Morning After" tune cootie attack that will last all day. Curse you, Joel.

So, just to be clear, this was the Borgnine as a calloused cop with the ex-hooker wife version and *not* the one with Kurt Russel as the ex-mayor of New York who sacrifices everything for his daughter and her flame because, you know, they are the future.

Although I think Pam Anderson may have been in both.

To bc, who likely already knows this: depression weaves a thick but see-through veil. This shroud is most effective in keeping love from others away from the depressive. So, the love and care from family, friends, pets, and colleagues is real but does not penetrate the fog of depression.

The veil makes the depressive "see the world through a glass darkly."

A very good priest with such quiet authority spoke about this at funeral Mass. The young man -- 37, father to one, LaX coach to many -- killed himself, out of the blue to the view of most.

The priest also spoke about his own shroud of depression.

Not a fault, of the person, nor those who love that suffering person.

But, damn bad misfortune....take care.

You actually took a picture of more than *just* Pam's shoulder.

= = =

It must be weird being Miss America if it means you wear your crown everywhere you go. Even Queen Elizabeth doesn't do that.

= = =

I was trying to be impressed by yellojkt's close encounters with Maureen Dowd, but he's been trumped big time now. Sorry, yj.

= = =

Cheryl Tiegs was my original standard for beauty back when I was reading Seventeen Magazine. [No wonder my self-esteem was in the negative numbers.] I'm glad to see that she is still beautiful--I can try to make that evidence that I'm not officially old yet.

So, was Ms. Anderson's objection to blogs in general, or the Achenblog in particular? Because if it is the latter, this suggests she might be a lurker. To which I say,

"Loved ya in Barb Wire. Call me."

Spelling alert: only one 'e' in 'Poseidon.'

I don't care for Miss America's crown. The design is cheesy. I suppose it takes a British royal to do a tiara in good taste. Of course, it helps to have real diamonds, instead of rhinestones.

I remember all those Disaster Movies from the seventies. A few were actually kinda sorta scary. My fav was "Night of the Lepus" because it had Dr. McCoy and really big vicious bunnies. I mean, who doesn't love that?

It seems as if we are seeing a mild rebirth of the genre lately what with "I am Legend," "The Day After," and, of course, the much derided "Poseiden" remake. Perhaps this is indicative of the same kind of free floating anxiety characteristic of the Nixon/Ford/Carter era.

Which, given the presence of Brzezinski *and* Cheryl Tiegs, suggests that perhaps the seventies are coming back. Now that's scary.

Whoah Tim - good catch. It is "Poseidon." And here I just blindly used Joel's spelling. The man does have influence.

Bad Sneakers, May you have a smooth procedure and quick recovery.

But note he did get "Zbigniew Brzezinski" correct.

I have this on-kit comment: dare I admit this?

In the family vault is a tiara. Said tiara was obtained by an in-law in 1976 for a state event that leads up to either Miss America or Miss USA (I shall be flogged and banished for not recalling the details).

Frosti -- said family is Swedish by way of Helsinki. Classic nordic beauty like every other farm girl in the greater Bemidji agri-foresty area.

Good morning, all.

*Tim, I noticed the misspelling of Poseidon as well, dropped an email to The Boss. We'll see if he gets to it...

Thanks to all of you for your notes of condolence and sympathy concerning my former co-worker. It's a very sad situation, as he was married with a teenage son.

bc

kbert, you'd give Cheryl a run for her money in the looks department, any day. To my dieing day, I'll swear that the *all* of the women of the boodle are gorgeous, through and through.

Did someone say "Night of the Lepus"???

http://hamous.org/images/lepus.jpg

Yeah, Joel trumped me big time. Never get in a celebrity stalking battle with a guy with a press pass.

I Joel's defense, it's hard to take a picture of Pamela Anderson and not get some collateral damage.

The best disaster movie spoof ever was The Big Bus starring Joseph Bologna and Stockard Channing. I saw it at the base theater one night and loved it so much I went back the next day to see it again. It helped that movies were only fifty cents.

Buenos dias, boodle!

I harbor a healthy suspicion of any adult who wears a tiara. And disaster movies didn't die out after the 70s. The original "Die Hard" followed the formula mentioned, complete with big party and B-list intros. And "I am Legend" was a remake of "The Omega Man".

well Joel... sounds like your evening was a lot more adventurous than the rest of us... I personally admit to watching Dancing with the Stars last night... and wolfing down a delicious decadent slice of carrot cake from Whole Foods... the icing is to die for... okay, I need to get a life!!!

... back to work now.

I agree, slyness. *My* tiara is much classier.

'Morning, Boodle. Special callouts this morning to fractured Maggie and friend bc. Memo to self: refrain from giving Maggie a good-natured ribbing for six weeks or so, until she heals.

Having a defective modem at home just bites, big time. You have no idea. I feel like I'm living in the Dark Ages (i.e., 15 years ago). Must be five or six times a night I want to get on the 'net and find out what's happening with fellow Boodlers, or to make a comment or post a heads-up. Hope the new modem arrives today, though they said 3 to 5 days (from Sunday). Can't even get on the Backboodle. How did mankind survive for the past couple hundred centuries? Didn't George Washington ever have the urge to drop an e-mail to Martha when he was on the run, skirmishing with the Redcoats? Who did Willy Shakespeare send an e-mail to after he'd written an especially good sonnet? Couldn't Hector and Paris and Priam and Ajax and Cassandra (not the one in NC, the other one) and Menelaus have worked something out by e-mail (and maybe with a little help from a conflict resolution mediator), maybe on the Kidnapped Spartan Brides weblog? Sheesh.

And who the heck is "Bob Nixon"? I Googled him and discovered I have three choices: Canuckistani politician (still living), British comic book artist (The Bean, Roger the Dodger) who died six years ago, or the famous (so it says) prophet from Chesire, who was born a few years after me, in 1467. Judging from the photo, I'd say it was the guy who died six years ago. But I could be wrong about that.

Miss Toronto, your evening was considerably more glamorous than mine, which was spent attacking the adhesive that remained on our kitchen floor (terazzo) after several layers of vinyl were removed from it yesterday. Yuck. And after that, I had to reassemble the wiring for my DSL modem and wireless router because it was all taken apart to move it out of the kitchen. After working all day and dealing with the floor (which, by the way, I didn't come close to finishing) all those wires were like the IQ test from hell. My brain did hurt. But the laptop was working from the other room this morning, so I guess I passed.

SCC terrazzo

You want a classy Tiara? Check this out: http://www.savingadvice.com/images/blog/hello-kitty-tiara.jpg

In case you're wondering, that's a guy in that photo. Jeffree Star.

Gomer wrote: "I harbor a healthy suspicion of any adult who wears a tiara."

Now my feelings are hurt. *sniff*

Since we are complaining about internet problems, the computer in our upstairs den now refuses to connect to my wireless network. This problem has been ongoing and getting worse. It is now in the intolerable range. I have thrown a wide range of technological gadgets and solutions at it to no avail.

Last night I bought an Apple Airport Express in hopes of using it as a network range extender. No luck. It seems I would need at least one more to make it work as one. Perhaps.

The upside is that I can now stream my iTunes to any room in my house.

Mornin' all...

Hi there, daiwanlan. :-)

No gala events for this furball. The only elbows mine rub have only been on TV because the cops have dashboard cameras.

Sounds like it was an interesting party though. That picture of Pam Anderson has me wondering whether it's possible to take a shot of her without her, um, "enhancements" dominating the scene. I mean, really... Joel took that shot from behind her and at least one of those silicone boobules is still visible (though clothed, darnit).

Anyway, back to reality...

I don't think I killed the bread dough. Left it in the oven overnight and it's finally risen. A little. It still needs to raise a little more, but we'll have fresh homemade bread sometime in the next day or three. Maybe I'll get Bean to help me yell at it some more this afternoon.

Gotta get back to doing whatever it is I do, so peace out and all that...

If you had ran into Shelly Winters, it would have been something! She died several years ago.

All that was missing was Carol Lynley mouthing the words to "The Morning After"

Mudge I had the same thought about Bob Nixon, only person I could come up with was the provincial politician - who has a few working ties to my relatives. As usual I am now trying to put a face to the name and just as typically it is not working.

kbertocci, LOL!!! yes, that darn vinyl... I cheated and had my tile guy just tile right over it... although, I just had one layer but I've heard that there can be asbestos in the glue if it's 70's vinyl. Not to scare you, it's not all vinyl, just some brands. But, I didn't want to find out... setting up modems, what a nightmare... you need a PhD today to figure out how to set these things up...

Fortunately I am past renovations however the garden is my curse right now... going full blast I completely overhauled the rock garden and flagstone pathways... black anti-weed fabric & mulch, a godsend.

.... but off to see the chiropractor for some fine tuning this morning... a few vertebrae misaligned... can't wait to be tortured back into shape... and go after that garden again!!!! ... besides the fact that my chiropractor is almost as delicious looking as that carrot cake :)

... makes up for my lack of evening parties.

Time to bring back morse code Mudge. Or that fancy flagspeak you once told us about.

Dave Barry had a story on the front page this morning about Miami traffic / driving habits--he says the situation is getting worse, and he has some suggestions. I liked this one:

"Young males should be issued restricted licenses that allow them to drive only during certain times, namely, the distant future..."

http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/512599.html

... makes up for my lack of evening parties...

forgot to sign-off.

Omni...ya always seem to catch me off guard. Thanks for the laugh. But while Hello Kitty is big in our house these days, that tiara just isn't going to pull me away from my shoe addiction.

A Doctor Who episode recently was a thinly veiled Poseidon Adventure homage despite being set on the Starship Titanic. It even had the overweight couple that sacrifice themselves for each other. The classics always live on.

Wow, Eve Plum and Michelle Pfeifer were born on the same day in 1958. Happy b-day to both.

In other news, today is International Dance Day. So break out the Blue Suede Shoes. And Dance If You Want To.

Ouch, omni! You sure that wasn't Pamela Anderson from the front side?

Gomer, "I am Legend" was a 1950s sci-fi novel by the wonderful Richard Matheson, was adapted into at least three movies I'm aware of, including "Omega Man" and the recent version you noted.

Would it be polite to talk about "Soylent Green," (adapted from Harry Harrison's "Make Room, Make Room") at a dinner party?

*That* could be a social disaster, anyway.
Particularly if some alcohol-influenced Soylent-themed double entendres start flying around in the presence of Miss America, Ms. Tiegs, Ms. Anderson, and Mr. Brzezinski.

bc

Thanks for that link to the driving article, Bertooch. I have passed it on to certain semi-select personages in the gummint agency I work for (at?). We here at Your Gummint Agency are always happy to receive valuable input on such issues as Graduated Driver Licensing and Older Driver issues. (We even handle some airport runway questions, although that's a different "mode" than mine.

(Yes, we have "modes" here. We're very trendy that way. Once upon a time we had divisions and departments and sections, but that was all so passe. Now we have modes (seven of them, if counting on my finkers [sic] is to be trusted).

Speaking of impending Disaster, I just learned that I will be going on a 6 to 8 week rotation to an undisclosed (though local) facility. Instead of analyzing information, I will help determine what information should be analyzed. It's a little bit like going from being a writer to an Editor, but with less of the prestige. Also, since this is a temporary lateral move, no more money will exchange hands.

They are trying to make me more "well rounded." (Insert tacky Pam Anderson joke here.)

Anyway, I begin my rotation on Cinco De Mayo (next Monday.) Since this new post will be much more meeting intensive, and less just me and my multiple computers multi-tasking, it is unclear how much blogging I will be able to do during the day.

We all must make sacrifices for the greater good.

Forgot to mention, Mudge:

I don't care what anyone says, you still look great in the Hello Kitty Tiara, sir.

And the feather boa is a nice touch.

bc

Oh, and bc - very sorry for your news. I have known a couple people who suffered from deep depression. There is such a sense of helplessness as a friend. You want to make things all better, but know you really can't.

But RD, since you work for the Forces of Darkness™ (motto: "Operating on a need-to-know basis since [you don't need to know]"), isn't the greater good best served by distracting you?

omni - so where'd you find that picture of one of my psychotic bunnies?

SciTim - I prefer to think of myself as a mole. By cleverly infiltrating the infrastructure I plan on single-handedly saving the world. Just as long as they don't detect that whole "delusions of grandeur" thing.

Good morning all. I'm safe and sound in southeastern VA...glad to hear that the Frostrents are safe as well. I thought about them as I watched the news last night and saw some red spots on the map near their stomping grounds, frosti. No tornadoes were that close to me, although the sky looked mighty ominous for awhile. One of the hospitals in the system I work for had some fairly significant damage, but continued to function.

On kit, from everything that I've read, it seems to me that perhaps the Correspondents gala may have outlived it's original aim. It seems somehow...icky. I mean, really, PAM ANDERSON?

RD, as a DC-area resident, my only thought when you said you were changing locations was "will the commute be any easier?"

Son of G is commuting all week to a training class in Silver Spring. Sounds lovely, no? Well picture a spot on the Beltway directly opposite our little spot on the Beltway. And then picture every car in the DC area traveling along that Beltway route.

His body clock as been on College Time for a year now. He came home yesterday at 6:00 and went to bed. Didn't hear a peep out of him until he left the house this morning at 7:00.

For the rest of the week, he's got the 8-hour training class and then another four hours in the location here in Fairfax where he'll actually be working.

Welcome to the real word, son. Maybe you'll go back to college sooner than you think.

Mudge, I love it when you get all intermodal on us. It sounds so ..... well, dirty.

BTW, anybody seen the PBS series "Carrier" that started Sunday night? Since I have to be in at work at zero-dark thirty on Monday mornings to prepare a briefing book for the boss on the black helicopter thingies, I only saw a brief slice of it. Nonetheless, I did NOT like what I saw. It's a day-in-the-life kinda thing, with real people, so the show has the look of any cheesy reality TV show. I can deal with that. It's the editing that frosts my granolas. You'd think that the only thing that the sailors ever do is their laundry. For cryin' out loud, they spend a half hour emotionaly tortureing a poor couple who got busted for having s e x on liberty. They got punished enough, already. There was no excuse for that kind of rotten story editing.

Laughing *with* TBG! #2 just started the first of two summer jobs; her shift are between 4 and 7 hours a day.

When I (aged 50) get home from my 7:00 - 7:30 day, I'm informed how very very tired she (aged 19) is. Poor baby!

RD, for some reason I'm thinking "mole" may not be the best word.

Yoki, elder dottir had been in the real world for six months or so when she wailed at me, "I'm turning into you!"

NOW she understands why I had to have peace and quiet after 10 p.m. so I could get up at 5:50 and be at work at 6:45.

TBG, nothing like a real job to focus a kid's mind. My brother worked for my uncle during the summers when he was in college, doing field work and whatever else needed to be done. A day of watering boxwoods in gallon cans in August made him realize the importance of his studies for his future employment.

Yoki, I get the same thing from my 25-year-old daughter. Poor girl. Life turns out to be more difficult (by far) than what she expected. You even have to clean up after yourself (O the horror!). She has to pay bills, buy new tires for her car, go to work EVERY day (Mon. to Fri. -- just think!) --the whole darned shooting match.

I just don't know how she does it, poor thing.

Don, I wrote a glowing review of episodes 1 and 2 a kit or two ago. Didn't see #3 or #4 last night, unfortunately. But what I liked about was exactly the thing you didn't: that it was about the people.

Morning, morning, friends.

God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

Morning, daiwanlan. Bad Sneakers, get well soon, and I hope everything works out well.

I am so late this morning, had the trip to you know where. Just getting back.

So celebrities are really rude in person. I thought what Pamela Anderson said to Mr. Achenbach was tacky,and the body language even worse. Maybe if he had said "strip", perhaps the response would have been different.The photos are nice, but don't know these folks.

Mudge, glad to see you back. I hope you get your internet problems worked out. We miss you terribly.
Slyness, if the storm showed up that particular night, I was out like a light. Did not hear anything.
Martooni, baking bread, that sounds so delicious.

Happy our folks that live in Virginia are okay. I hope there wasn't too many injuries. It looked rough here yesterday too, but we just got hail and more rain.

Time to go. Have a great day, folks.

Don-I vehemently disagree with your analysis of Carrier. Doing laundry and other mundane things are exactly what people spend much of their military lives doing. Failing to understand just how important those things are ruins many a leader's career. This hits rather close to home for me as the last time I spent any time deployed by a strange twist of fate I had a laundry unit under my charge. I wish there had been a film crew there when an Air Force pilot tossed a pair of jockey shorts on my desk complaining that they smelled of diesel fuel. They did smell as if they could burst into flames, and we had some real problems to fix but all I could do was laugh and tell him he was lucky he got his shorts back, I was missing half of my undies.

I thought the s e x bust was handled very well. How quickly a fast burning career can flame out completely is little understood outside the military, and it happens at both NCO and officer level, more frequently than most people imagine.

SCC-where do I begin? Must be some kind of comma coma.`1

I was half paying attention to Carrier last night. Part of the premise seems to be that these are very young kids and that a carrier isn't much different from a high school/college dorm scenario.

My understanding of the s e x incident was that the two were not only boinking, they were AWOL coming back from shore leave and that the girl had no reliable recollection of the incident.

Still, pretty harsh punishment for a random drunken hook-up.

SCC: `1

my bad, if she'd start a fire I'd quit sitting on the laptop.

For me the story arc in Carrier that was most compelling last night was the kid who got discharged after multiple racial incidents. He says he doesn't care, and the Navy was not the right job for him, and all he wants to do is get in enough trouble to go home, but he looks scared stiff every time he says it.

I wish they'd spent a little more time on what it means for the young people who cross that bridge to the NCO ranks quickly, leaving their former peers behind. It would have made why the military sees the s e x incident as so beyond the pale make more sense. I'll admit to being very old-school in this, never, never, never in the chain of command or close quarters like a ship. As Olympia Dukakis says in Moonstruck, "Don't sh*t where you eat."

Howdy y'all. My, Joel gets some swanky perks. The Correspondents dinner! His description confirmed my deepest suspicions about many things - the pointlessness of the event, the return of the '70s, the vapidity of blondes (and I still am one). Truly, given what should be a deep mistrust and animosity between the press and the current adminstration, if the press were doing their job, I don't understand why such a socially awkward event is still being held. Who's making money from this? I loved Colbert's turn at the podium a couple of years ago, which shows you that I'm not a fan of the occasion. However, it is nice that Joel gets to cosy up to the - hmmm. I was going to say "elite" but the guest list doesn't quite fit. Formerly powerful? Glitterati? Omni will know.

Congratulations on your sideways lateral move with no extra remuneration, RD. Sounds like a treat. If the meetings get too onerous, consider bringing in one of the fierce lagomorphs, as a sort of mascot.

Was it only me who realized he had smoke blown up his butt this morning?

Bush, McCain and Clinton are all saying we should rescind the $0.18/gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

For WHAT?

So us mindless consumers won't feel so bad when we save $3.60 on a 20-gallon fill-up that will still cost $70?

You know what will come next. The gas companies will bellyache about not having enough refining capacity and will jack up the costs another $0.18 for their own pockets while not producing a single extra freakin' gallon. And they'll probably get more tax breaks for their trouble.

How freakin' dumb do they think we are?

This is just plain old gettin' it up the you-know-where and being expected to smile about it and pretend you asked for it.

I think most of you know I'm a peace-lovin' long-haired type, but this kind of blatant "eff-you-whatcha-gonna-do-about-it" is making me reconsider my pacifist approach to life.

fb,
IIRC, she was an E-3 and he was an E-6. It would take him five years to recover from the disciplinary action, which is a a career killer.

I don't know much about the enlisted ranks, but among my dad's peers it was pretty much acknowledged that if you didn't make major by year 10 or 12 it was time to apply to Delta.

Martooni asks, "How freakin' dumb do they think we are?"

Dumb enough to think we'll forget about the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis and won't care what the $0.18 "savings" will cost our transportation infrastructure. Pandering idiots, all of them.

yello-exactly, if they'd both been E3s it wouldn't have been nearly such a big deal. His career is over. In a way being junior enlisted is a license to be stupid a time or two. I remember a day when Second Lieutenants were given the same leeway, no more. A DUI will also end an Officer or NCO career in a heartbeat.

It will be interesting to see what the mortgage crisis does to military careers. A foreclosure or bankruptcy is grounds for yanking a security clearance, another career killer. I don't think so many military folks got into true sub-prime loan messes, compared to civilians of the same income, but we often don't have much choice about when to sell a house.

I hadn't thought about the career-killing aspect of a foreclosure or bankruptcy (concerning homes) until you said it, Frosty. There *are* alternatives to foreclosure, though it takes something of an expert to steer one through the alternative strategies. And I doubt that most military (or most civilians, for that matter) can get access to such advisors. But ti can be done.

I agree with your premise that not too many military got hurt by the sub-prime thing, though. But they -- just like all the rest of us -- have gotten hurt by the general situation (thank you, Ronald Reagan, for deregulating, you moron).

Martooni, you were talking about the cost of bread earlier. There was a whole convoy of truckers on The Mall yesterday making the point that higher gas prices is what's driving our cost of living up into the wild blue yonder. Dropping the federal gas tax has other effects than the $20 a week I'll be saving at the service station. That bread will be cheaper to bring to market starting all the way back at the raw material stage.
I also expect that OPEC knows what it's doing, and it's important to remember that their objective and our objective are different things.
There's something to be said about hedging your bets, expecting that gas prices will drop right around election time, and that consumer confidence will rise about then too (specifically *because* we're getting a new leader).
Two percent of nothing is nothing, but half a percent of something is something.
Did that bridge fall because of lack of funds, or lack of oversight? I sorta kinda remember hearing something about this.
Don't have time to make these thoughts flow better, but you get the idea.

Maybe Ms. Anderson didn't realize the power of this particular blog; perhaps if Joel had said, "It's for the Washington Post" instead, she might have been a bit more forthcoming.

BTW, the third version not mentioned of "I Am Legend" is "Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price in the lead role. Lovely little film, but unfortunately most of the prints you'll find have very, very bad sound and are a bit washed out. Fox just released another version; I haven't seen it yet, so I can't make comment on its quality.

I find this story quite funny in a "pox on all your houses" kind of way. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042801236.html?hpid=sec-religion

Deceptively chillier outside than it appears due to the rather persistent breeze (therm says 60 but I dunno -- but then again, I was dumb enough to go out without my coat). However, mid-shiver, it made me realize I miss Pat and his sky reports. Anybody heard from him lately? How's he doing? (I feel a bit like the Jewish momma who says, "Feh. The children never call.")

CentervilleMom, that was the other version of "I am Legend" I referred to this morning.

Good pull.
Sounds like I'd enjoy perusing your DVD collection.

bc

Quit yer grousin' and educate yourselves about oil worldwide:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/business/worldbusiness/29oil.html

LiT, I agree.

I think this is as much an economic stimulus package as anything.

And I don't think that the oil industry will jack prices up right after the Feds drop the tax, with everyone watching.

bc

LiT-there was an oversight problem with the bridge. The problem was that oversight, or a stepped up inspection schedule, was chosen over building a new bridge. A bridge of the same design in St. Cloud was recently closed with replacement bridge construction to start ahead of schedule. I guess St. Cloud residents should be thankful Minneapolis leads our state in just about everything.

I sympathize with my fellow drivers and eaters who would like to see the federal gas tax lifted. However, I'd much rather our leaders see this as a "tough love" opportunity to get our house in order re: consumption, energy efficiency, and those pesky foreign interventions. Cheap gas and food, provided by low cost access to the world's petroleum supplies, is not some divine American right. There is never a popular time to take steps on a long term solution that doesn't alleviate today's pain. However, since we can't do it ten years ago now is the best time to get going.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that there were *any* divine rights for Americans.
I respectfully suggest that while there's never a good time for a tough-love policy you advocate, now is a particularly bad time considering the mortgage crisis that already has a lot of this country over a barrel.

DandyLion=Pat

Yes, Pat is DandyLion. Sky report: beautiful, deep blue. White fluffy clouds strategically placed so as not to impede sunshine.

Even taking into consideration the possible projected drop in transportation costs of produced goods and grain, I too am skeptical that suspending the federal gas tax will actually benefit the consumers in any truly discernible way. As Obama and the CBO say, the average consumer will see about $30 in gasoline savings over three months. Long-haul truckers will probably see some more. However, the depth and the breadth of the problem pretty much guarantees that, nationwide, the transportation costs won't come down enough to significantly affect prices of food - the consumer necessity rising fast. The shortage of grain, which also affects dairy and meat prices, will not be alleviated by a suspension of the gas tax. All this is a long way of saying I think those high prices are going to stay high whether that tax disappears or not.

The state and federal gas taxes also serve an essential governmental function: infrastructure development and repair. It is essential that we keep those dedicated funds. At the state level at least there is nowhere near enough being spent on road and bridge maintenance. Funding affects oversight. And let's not forget the lost jobs from highway construction and maintenance when those projects disappear. Those folks are already hurting. I know Sen. Clinton says she'll replace the lost revenue with money from a tax on the oil company profits. Sure. Unless they enact that tax first, before suspending the gas tax, I confidently predict it will never happen.

Granted, my thoughts are looking at the shorter-term temporary relief and do not address the longer-term issues.
I do seem to remember (ha! that comes from someone who always seems to misplace car keys) that that particular highway administration had prided itself on its annual budget surplusses. Not that this says anything about the condition of our national infrastructure.
I still hold out hope that the next Administration -- whoever might be leading that parade -- will not be nearly as chummy with the oil companies as we've seen in the past seven years.

I believe I have a divine right to grouse.

(Which in any event is theraputic.)

Sorry, DandyLion/Pat. I never saw the paperwork on the handle change; Scotty must have signed off on it during one of my absences. Either that, or it got stuck to the back of Sunworshippers Magazine or something.

Grouse? Whasamatta with quail, 'Mudge? Or pheasant?

But Mudge, of course you'd be simply divine in that tiara (think Tim Gunn).

Curmudgeon, you may have a divine right to grouse, but only royalty has a divine right to pheasant.

Grousing is *so* unpheasant. It makes me quail.

I thought that DandyLion thing was a mailing from a lawn service, 'Mudge. My bad.

I purchase medium-flavor gas for my ScienceMobile (89 octane) -- not too fancy, not too plebeian. Most recently, it cost 3.82/gallon. A decrease of $0.18/gallon saves me a whopping 4.7%. If all of my food-and-consumer-goods costs were 100% derived from gasoline costs for transportation, the largest impact I could see would be around a 4.7% discount -- a little more than that if we assume low-octane fuel, only. In the real world, fuel costs for transportation are only a modest fraction of the purchase price of goods, so my 4.7% maximum savings is heavily diluted. Keep in mind that petrochemicals used in the rest of the production process (e.g., fertilizer) are not subject to the tax that McCain et al. propose to suspend -- it applies only to purchases of transportation fuel. The cost of goods can decrease only in proportion to the cost of fuel used in transporting the goods or producing them (e.g., in the costs of operating tractors). Thus, the net savings is certainly a lot less than 5%.

The most noticeable impact I will see from these putative savings is in my private purchase of fuel, and that savings is a very small fraction of my expenditures in that department. With my nicely efficient new commutemobile, I buy about 10 gallons per week, at a cost of $38.20 (and it will certainly be more expensive by summer). A repeal of the Federal gas tax would save me a lousy stinking $1.80 per week. If you drive a gas-guzzling, smog-puking, male-compensation machine, your fuel costs probably still won't be more than a factor of 3 greater than mine, saving you $5.40 per week or $281/year. That will buy you a cup of over-priced coffee and a biscotti each week. Big whoop. If you drive an inefficient beast, and also drive a lot, your savings begin to add up -- but the fact is, the savings are still quite small compared to what you are wasting on fuel. If you use enough fuel that a 5% fuel-cost savings is big money in comparison to your other expenditures, then you use enough fuel that you are one of the few people who would see a direct economic benefit from driving a hybrid or other more-efficient vehicle. Stop whining about fuel prices, put your stupid giant pickup up on blocks, and join the commute-mobile crowd. You can always use your giant behemoth when you need to move something big. If that's what you do for a living, then your fuel costs are passed on to your customers and it's not your problem, anyway.

A little perspective on relative threats to Americans-

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/shared-blogs/ajc/luckovich/entries/2007/08/03/we_must_attack.html

*tim, Your 2:57 made me think of root canaling. I am sedated, but are perfectly aware of what the dentist is talking about. It should be painless, shouldn't it?

On the way home from Costco a little while ago, elder dottir commented that when she started driving ten years ago, gas was less than a dollar a gallon. Yep, so it was.

I'm much more interested in ensuring that people in Africa don't starve than I am in lowering my fuel costs. Let's be real here. If gas goes high enough, maybe there will be incentive and political will to establish a real energy policy. This is an area where capitalism needs good government to create the right, not the expedient, policy.

Hey DandyLion! I missed the memo too. Glad to have you around. Brilliant Carolina blue sky here, not a cloud to be seen.

I bought petunias and impatiens for the containers front and back but will wait till tomorrow and warmer weather to plant them. I hope tonight's lows will be blackberry winter, and we'll be done with cold weather.

Oh, dear. It has been my life's dream never to remind anyone of a root-canal. I have failed. Sorry about that.

Tim, I like your calculation! I just calculated my savings as less than $50 a year. Triple big whup. How about repealing that 10% ethanol requirement instead? Would go a lot farther in addressing food shortages, plus would allow Tim to get better gas mileage in his commute-mobile.

Eh, *Tim, I think you're missing a couple of things here.

They're only talking about dropping the gas tax over the summer - when usage by consumers and businesses (farmers, etc.) is likely to be highest. I think it's a temporary suspension, not a repeal.

$.18 per gallon is all that the Feds *can* drop it. If they could, I think they would cut the price of a gallon even more. Remember, they're also giving us each checks for $600, too. They must believe that every little bit helps. Didn't someone say something is better than nothing?

The suspension of the gas tax may also have a psychological effect by bolstering consumer confidence, and if it helps slow the economy's movement towards recession, that's a good thing isn't it?
And if the economy shows signs of even getting a little better, perhaps someone will be encouraged to take a chance and maybe buy a house, you know?

I think there's a lot of places in our economy where the price of a gallon of gas may make a difference, and I don't presume to be able to enumerate all of them. Why not try it? Besides, how much money a day are we spending in Iraq?

As you know, I don't own a SUV, and all of my cars are old (my newest is 9 years old with 175,000 mi.) and on the smallish side, and get well over 30 MPG city and highway combined.

I don't think there's a need to put anything on blocks just yet, including the idea of suspending this tax.

Is it intended to help the GOP? I'm not sure. Maybe. But if the Dems get behind it too, then the GOP can't claim complete credit for it come November.

bc

I knew about and have read the "I Am Legend" book or novella, or whatever it is, but not the Vincent Price version. Good call, C-ville! I liked the Will Smith version, except for the CG creatures. Could have done with real humans. I do love post-apocalyptic flicks, but the ones that really freak me out are zombie movies. I don't typically get scared from horror flicks, but the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" gave me such willies that, while I couldn't sleep after viewing it, I did have plenty of time to plan my escape for when the zombie hordes attack.

Anyone besides me read the book "World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War"? Basically, it is the story, from multiple viewpoints, of the rising of the undead that happened about 10-12 years ago. An unexpectedly fun read. I think the author is Max Brooks.

Well, I hope they're happy over on the CBlog. I've a headache. They've got a full scale MileyStorm going on.

The NYT has done a fine job with a series of articles called "The Food Chain."
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/series/the_food_chain/index.html

Fine rant Sci Tim, don't be sorry.

Hey, any Boodlers going to do the Post Hunt? Sounds like great fun, although I won't be able to participate :o(.

Personally, I have to say that I favor the opposite of the tax suspension -- I favor a huge increase in the tax. A 5% savings is no great help; a 5% increased cost is no great pain. Let's see, now...

I think we can estimate that roughly a third of the U.S. population drives for an average sort of distance every day. There are single people, and couples that drive separately, and people who take mass-transit, and families with non-driving kids, and car-poolers. One-third is a crude estimate, but probably not wrong by more than a factor of 2 in either direction. So we have about 100 million drivers each day. Assume each drives for an average sort of commute distance each day -- say, about 40 miles. That's 4 billion road-miles per day. At an average of 20 miles per gallon, that's about 200 million gallons of gas per day. The current $0.18/gallon tax results in revenues of $36 million/day, or $13 billion/year. Very small compared to the Iraq war, a bit smaller than the NASA budget.

If we tripled the Federal fuel tax, it would be only a 10% increase in the cost of fuel compared to current pricing. That's at a level at which people would begin to really notice and perhaps alter their fuel habits accordingly (making a modest decrease in revenues -- an acceptable outcome), but it would break the bank for only those people who are right on the edge -- and who are in immediate danger of going over the edge, anyway. Such an increase would generate an additional $26 billion revenue per year. *IF* that money were wisely allocated to investments in transportation technology, it could make a real difference in national fuel costs, with long-term benefits to the environment and national security. I would make my first priority subsidizing functional plug-in hybrids, supporting advanced battery technologies, and developing infrastructure for distributed recharging of parked electric vehicles. Most vehicles are driven short enough distances on most trips that a recharging station at the end of each trip might free most vehicles from daily fuel-consumption.

Ethanol sounds nice and carbon-neutral, because the carbon dioxide released by combustion was captured from the air to create the fuel in the first place. However, ethanol really is just an extremely inefficient form of solar energy collection. The source of chemical energy stored in the ethanol molecule ultimately derives from the sunlight that powered a plant's photosynthesis of sugars that were converted to starches that were converted to cellulose that were converted to ethanol for fuel.

We need first to create an infrastructure that supports partial-electric and all-electric vehicles for most traffic. Then we move to the second priority, generating the electricity without fossil fuels.

It's been tough to swallow the remarks of those of you who flipped me the bird about my grousing. Hey, it was just a lark, OK? It's not like I was robin a bank or anything. You oughta know an old coot like me grouses owl the time anyway. It was just a mocking blurt on my part.

*Ducking*

Bravo Science Tim!

SonofCarl - by "mole" I mean a person who is keeping some of his true identity partly hidden. Where I will be hanging out there is a certain hostility and suspicion to Sciency-Types. It's a cultural thing. So I shan't be wearing my Maxwell's Equations tie right away.

I don't know wren we last saw you so loonie Mudge.

*Tim, Virginia Gov Tim Kaine agrees with you about raising the gas tax...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042901601.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Hmm. I am wordy today.

bc, I understand that the Feds can't lower the price any further. That doesn't change the fact that it's a trivial effect. I allowed my calculation to cover a full year to show that even if the suspension were extended indefinitely, the effect would be of negligible value. If it really were restricted to 3 months, then the benefit would be only 25% of the total annual benefit that I showed.

Every little bit may help, but only if it is actually helpful. Those transportation revenues that would be lost are used to pay for fundamental infrastructure that is continuously needed and must be continually replenished. Funds that support mass transit are needed to help precisely the people who are being most squeezed by gas prices, which would remain high even with the $0.18/gallon decrease. Those bills must be paid or those benefits must be lost, which means that the fuel tax will simply be made up in another tax or deferred to future taxes (with interest). If the purpose of the tax-suspension is to relieve the burden on those most-afflicted and least able to cope with high fuel prices, a better way is to leave the fuel tax alone and modify the income-taxation scheme so that it is less regressive.

I think some of you see the tank half full and I (like some of you) see it half empty. It really doesn't matter who thinks what, because we'll only get as far on a half full tank as we would on a half empty one.

And that's not far, because when the gas is all gone, it's all gone.

Which brings me back to my original point.

That $0.18/gallon "stimulus" for a few months isn't going to change a dang thing in the long term and very little in the short term. But if they were to take that $0.18/gallon ($0.18 x 380 million gallons per day = $684K per day) and actually *apply* those funds to researching alternatives to fossil fuels or developing ways to use fossil fuels more efficiently, we could probably eliminate the core problem very quickly.

$684K x 365 = $24,966,000,000

So how many innovations would almost $25 BILLION in tax revenues buy?

I had a car in 1983 that got 40+ miles per gallon -- a '78 or so Renault "LeCar" (go ahead and laugh, but that bugger still wasn't dead after 300K miles and I did my best to kill it). And here we are nearly 25 years later and the best mileage I see of affordable mid-size cars is in the low-to-mid-30mpg range, if even that?

They've got to be kidding.

This isn't just stupid, it's unacceptable.

You'd think that we might have seen advances in fuel efficiency similar to those we've seen in microprocessor speed, data storage and network growth and bandwidth capabilities.

Two different fields of science, I know. But still...

We can now balance terabytes of data on the head of a pin, yet it's impossible to mass produce a safe, marketable car that gets 100mpg?

Somehow I find that hard to believe.

Philip Carter has a darn good column on one of the architects of the War on Tarra, at http://blog.washingtonpost.com/inteldump/2008/04/clueless_about_coin.html#more

I'm just widgeon and hopin' these awful stop.

(Yeah, sure.)

SCC: "these awful puns"

I'm with ScienceTim and frostbitten on the gas tax suspension rants. I just think it is bad policy and won't help anyone who needs it.

One might say it is for the birds.

Running for the buss. Then afterward I guess I'll go home.

Martooni, I agree with you. SciTim, innovations take time.

India is an country whose citizenry on average earn annually what it would take to fill a tank of gas now (okay, maybe two). Gas there has been more expensive than here for years. However, part of that is taxes in order to fuel the real need-- cheap diesel for buses, trucks, etc. for mass transit, food transport, etc.

This keeps food cheap and available in India (which grows most of its own food in a country 1/3 the size of America), and mass transit is heavily used. Many bus services are privately owned.

Bottom line... don't repeal the gas tax, but force the oil companies to subsidize diesel right now so we can save our mass transit and food delivery infrastructure right now from the crunch.

Since few people actually drive pedestrian vehicles running on diesel (and in fact diesel will ruin a gas engine), this would be an easy way to channel tax breaks where it counts the most this summer.

I agree, Ivansmom, and with all the others who think the suspension of the gas tax is nuts. I think the pols believe, or want to believe, that we're just a bunch of stupid morons.

That being said, I've learned, much to my regret, not to ever underestimate the utter stupidity of the American people.

*sigh*

And all this fulmination about Wright, when very little (all too little) was fulminated about Falwell and Robertson who said pretty much the same thing about 9/11. Of course, the latter two did say that the attack was, among other things, my fault, since I'm a rampant feminist. But, then, feminism is a convenient target and misogyny is the last bastion of acceptable behavior. And, let us not forget, F and R were/are white guys.

There's much I don't care for about Wright's comments and beliefs (in particular his embrace of Farrakhan), but I'm not gonna have a cow over him. Nor am I going to attribute his views to those of Obama.

That's my own fulmination for the day, and now that I have pitched it over to the boodle, I bid you all adieu.

Until next time.

Obama was ticked and is now basically washing his hands of this meddlesome priest and is outraged that Wright implied he believes that stuff as well.

Maybe it should have been sooner, but I can't fault his inital responses.

One more last parting shot: Pam Anderson has asserted her desire to "speak out against animal testing".

I hope all the lawmakers looking at her silicone breasts will wonder just how many animals died in animal testing for those implants to be created.

Honestly, I back MORE mandatory animal testing. If we had done more, we wouldn't have landed in the DDT mess in the 1950's, and we may in fact be poisoning our pets and ourselves today in ways we do not realize. Men have lower fertility thanks to pesticides.

Deformed frogs are common and populations are down, thanks to the corn pesticide atrazaine.

You think maybe if they had been required to do an "ecosystem safety" test by flushing some pesticide into an artifical stream, they'd have found out maybe it wasn't such a great chemical?

I do.

In case anyone is interested in raw facts about petroleum consumption/production/importation in the US (though the Administration may have manipulated them):

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

Note that these are 2007 figures and won't be updated again until June.

Some of the things that caught my eye:

Canada is the top single supplier of crude oil imports to the US (nearly 2.5 million barrels a day). OPEC provides another 5.5 million per day.

Oil by the barrel was (on average) $59.69 each a year ago. Current prices (as of today) are $115.40.(not to mention Cheney's closed-door meetings with Enron-ish types to hammer out US energy policy)

(should we call out the "South Park" brigade and "Blame Canada"?)

The thing I have a problem with is that even with the increase in demand from countries like China, it's not like we doubled the number of cars and trucks and other oil eaters globally in the course of a single year (or did we?). So why does a barrel of oil cost twice as much as it did a year ago?

Like I said earlier, I'm more than convinced somebody's giving us a good one up our collective arses and the fact we have two oil guys in the top two offices of the US makes me just a wee bit suspicious.

Of course the oil companies will immediately raise the cost of gas by $0.18 the instant the tax holiday goes into force. Reaping another windfall. They will put spokespeople on TV preaching about Mr. Invisible Hand. I wonder what gas would be if there were no price fixing?

I want a nuclear powered steam car. I wouldn't let my core melt down. Really! I promise! Seriously, I'm starting to agree with Scotty more and more. Especially since they are building a huge coal-burner upwind from me. Yum, more NOx.

SCC: the bit about Cheney and the Enrons should have been in the last paragraph.

On a side note, "D!ck Cheney and the Enrons" would be a great name for a punk band with Devo leanings.

martooni - you are right that the present price of oil isn't justified just by demand. Part of it is because the dollar is taking a lickin' worldwide, and oil is priced in dollars. The other thing is that investors have been putting big money into energy stocks. So you are seeing a classic investment bubble.

Er, does anyone have the math handy to calculate consumer confidence, or steer a country out of recession?

Also, there are people to whom $20 may make a big difference. I'm fortunate that it doesn't make much difference to me, but I do appreciate that there are folks to whom that money might mean the difference between giving the kids chicken for dinner, or instant pancakes again.

And how they'd afford a hybrid or a newer small car rather than the 20-year old Chevy they're driving, I don't know.

Shaking my head over here about how a proposed short-term tax suspension turned into rants over long term energy policy.

A note: if you want to save gas, when you buy that new little car, make sure you get the manual tranmission rather than the automatic. That slushbox sucks up a lot of energy to the wheels, and a well driven manual can get 5-7 better MPG than the EPA ratings.

bc

Hey, there about Enron, I wrote a rather positive profile of Enron years ago about energy-savings innovations....

Never wrong for the boodle: free download of Tom Dolby's fab electro-funkie tune:

SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE!
http://2007.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/46084.html

Here's a nifty article on the factors behind oil prices.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/29/news/economy/oil_dollar/index.htm?section=money_topstories

CP: That was one of my favorite songs in Graduate School. Thanks!

bc - you are quite right about the small cars. Driven slowly. That works too.

I got over 30 mpg with my old Ford escort station wagon (automatic)-- the key is not to accelerate and brake hard, that eats up gas as well.

However, manual transmission... never learned how to drive a stick, and my concern with those is the parking brake can be disengaged when the stick is bumped even when the car's engine is off.

I learned this the hard way when leaning across to the backseat in a friend's car, incidentally. If the braking was designed more like automatics, I wouldn't be so reluctant to drive a manual.

Maybe you can enlighten me on this design? The car in question was a Ford Escape, if it helps.

"Shaking my head over here about how a proposed short-term tax suspension turned into rants over long term energy policy."

Because the politicians who propose it, not you BC, are tossing up a short term miniscule respite from rising prices that will damage our future far more than it will benefit anyone in the short term. Would you take out a payday loan for $20 to avoid serving pancakes again if you knew you'd have to pay $40 back? What happens when the dollar is even weaker or crude prices don't stabilize? Both are as likely as not.

RD... I'm actually enjoying the weak dollar in some respects -- one of the websites where I sell my wee doors is based in Germany and its default currency is Euros. I have to keep lowering my Euro price (which looks good to those paying in Euros) because of the dropping dollar, but I get the same amount of dollars in the end.

I should probably just hold onto the Euros.

But how 'bout that? I'm not only a purveyor of miniature doors for imaginary beings, but an international currency trader too!

All I need now is a cape and a catch-phrase. ;-)

Wilbrod-bumping the stick of a manual transmission vehicle should not disengage the parking brake.

When did the Boss sneak in and fix the spelling of the title? He's a slippery guy.

In the name of all that is holy, why Neil Diamond as tonight's mentor on Idol? (And why can't I look away?)

It can't be any worse than the train wreck that was Andrew Lloyd Webber week.

My earlier statement could have been hasty - this is painful. Anyone know if Carrier is on Canadian TV tonight? Good thing I am reasonably brain dead with my cold.

As Frosti said the price of gas may not have peaked yet. It's not the time to offer a 4.7% rebate. Gas here is 1.25$/litre, i.e. about4.65$ per usg. It's getting close to $8.30 in the UK, diesel is already above that mark (1.08£/liter for petrol, 1.20£/liter for diesel). Guess what, small fuel efficient car are more popular over there. We should expect gas in the $6-8 per usg bracket this summer.

Tim, transport is not everything. Farmers use fertilizers. Ammonia (NH3) is a favourite. It's made by cracking natural gas (have you seen the prices of methane lately?) with air and heat (more energy). Ammonia is sometimes transformed into urea or ammonium nitrate for fertilizing purposes, using more energy in the process.
The typical North American grain farm has two person working it (generally ignoring the woman working the books...), using large costly diesel powered machines. They also have to add weed killers and insecticide (a.k.a crop protection). This farm will produce 2000 tons of grain/pulse a year and will be heavily subsidized by the US government, for no good reason but gathering electoral support. It makes Jack Deer, the Bank of North Dakota, and Montanso happy, but it burns quite a bit of fuel. This is the energy intensive agri-business the World bank has been foisting on developing countries for years. It may be that the chickens have come to roost. The punjabi rice grower, making a few tons on his small parcel with the help of a buffalo and who got hammered with low-priced energy intensive American rice in the past few years, may get his day in the sun finally. Unless the US gunmint raise the subsidies even higher that is.

>All I need now is a cape and a catch-phrase

I'm thinking a play on the German "fee". How about "The Fee you're glad to see"

The oil price increase was expected (though not the rate of increase). The thing that caught me by surprise are all these food shortages all of a sudden. For the last 20+ years, the narrative has been that the US and Europe were locked in a subsidy war that drove down prices and created over-supply to the detriment of smaller players *cough, cough* and the Third World.

Shrieking-don't dis the Bank of North Dakota, the only state owned bank in the US. (And people think ND isn't full of lefties.)

Shrieking-but I should also add that you are dead on in your critique of US agri-business (I am loathe to call it farming).

Hey Boodle
Been unable to get online the last couple of weeks. Shoot an extra $20 would help so much. I drive 100 miles a day to a job I really like,but pays poorly. I am not making it and any little bit helps.

It has been getting pretty in west by god,almost everything is in bloom. Critters are running about.A neighbor emailed me about Bear cubs running around their yard,I drove by last night but haven't seen any. Been seeing alot of Honey Bees and found out my neighbor is raising them. I guess we will have all the bears hanging up on our street.

Bc, sorry to hear about your friend.

Martooni keep it up dude, I enjoy your posts.

Have a good evening boodle

Hello? Anybody there? Is this the Internet? I'm looking for the Achenblog. I seem to have installed a new modem and configured my access all by my own lonesome self. I rock! (Actually, I don't rock; sometimes I just get lucky.)

Crossing fingers, toes, and any other appendages I can find to cross that this thing will last more than a day or two.

I'M SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shrieking, how true. I wonder what would be the tipping point where it would pay more for human labor (and non-diesel machines) to farm. I don't think it's going to happen that easily.

There's a go-green show that shows lots of energy-saving innovations, including using cattle muck for natural gas and electricity, but not much yet on solar-powered tractors or anything like that. Maybe we SHOULD make John Deere comply with fuel-efficiency laws.

*Silently faxes Mudge a 12 step de-addiction plan*

There is a bank of North Dakota??? This was a shot in the dark Frosti, honest.
I feel grumpy when I hear all those people demanding cheap food. Some of the food commodities were selling for ridiculously low prices. I've got to say I'm happy that the value of crops is climbing up to sustainable prices for non-industrial growers. But the prices hurt, that is for sure. A new equilibrium needs to be reached. In the mean times, moron like Chavez and what-z-his-name-in-Iran are laughing all the way to the banks with oil in the +120$ range.
Osama was wrong, 100$ a barrel was the baseline. 120-200$ looks more like it.

What's Iraq oil production this month? 10 or 20% of its former value?
Any chance that drilling Alaska's north west slope will pick up the slack?

W is such a shameless slave to the oil industry, that makes him an idiot. The man cannot think for himself, somebody else has to do it for him.

Hello, my name is Mudge. I'am an Achenaddict. It's been 10 days since my last post...

Shrieking-the Bank of North Dakota is one of the vestiges of the Non Partisan League (which spread to Saskatchewan). Its mission is to "encourage and promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota."

Welcome Mudge! Have you apologized to everybody you've ever hurt due to your addiction? Including your computer?

Mudge-Thought you were just too engrossed in Carrier, but great to have you back in the evenings.

Nutcracker Man probably was more a Fruit Slurpee Man....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080430/sc_livescience/toughearlyhumanlovedfruit;_ylt=ApdnsqNTwfchcmSH_aZfukNxieAA

Liem's paradox is interesting. How many cows would eat grass if they had chicken tartare available? At least one wouldn't.

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/03/08/nationworld.nw-368482.sto

One of Osama Bin Laden's goal was to shock the economy enough to drive the price of oil above $100 a barrel. Looks like he had an accomplice, but he has achieved his goal.

Can I invoke the "Hitler rule?"

Unless you really think and mean that your fellow-citizens are extreme-right National Socialists or terrorists, referring to them as equivalent to Hitler or Bin Laden (!) on the 'net is an intellectually-lazy escalation of rhetoric to no good purpose.

It's dead, Jim.

I'm still here, Yoki. How ya doin'?

I think Yellojkt was referring to Bush in the themes Michael Moore explored in "Farenheit 911."

Someday there will be a "Bush rule", no doubt.

I'm doing just fine, 'Mudge.

I understand what yello was doing, I just don't like it, Wilbrod.

OK, long past bedtime. Aloha, Rainforest, you guys have to keep Yoki and mostly company for a while. Ask her how the Bernese are doing; we haven't heard about them for a while.

'Night, Boodle.

Anybody got Joel's work email handy? I have a story idea for him (on the condition he lets me be "an anonymous source") that will only be interesting to The Washington Post for the next 24-36 hours. For those few hours, it's spectacular. It feeds into all Joel's environment/climate change/hard science schtick.

achenbachj@washpost.com

Thanks, anon.

Good night, y'll. I just finished a paper on conceptual v. empirical economic visuals.

My head hurts. See you on the other side night.

CP!

So, it's, like, "I think I see money," vs
"I see money?"

And from that day forward we were the best of friends.

I don't like it either, Yoki.

Ouch! Maggie. Hope you have a speedy recovery.

bc, sorry about your ex-colleague.

Bad Sneakers, hope all went well with your surgery. My sister had gall stones taken out. The look like moon rocks.

Incredible dog act :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ePalTFw5iKM

CP, very interesting paper. Would love to read it.

That's canine freestyle. I blogged on that once.

http://wilbrodog.blogspot.com/2006/10/dog-of-dance.html

Walking backwards on two feet, yeah, that's a useful skill.

As I am of more massive build, I'll stick with my caprioles, thank you. At least I know NOT to eat my leash on camera.

And no, I'm not envious. If I could meet her off leash to show who's who, no, I wouldn't be envious at all.

Thanks to being kept up last night by a GI bug, I'm helplessly upside-down on my wakefulness schedule. Why can't I just take a plane to Taipei?

Wilbrodog, there's cats and racoons out there at this hour.

Thinking of things environmental, Island Press, based on Connecticut Avenue, seems to be thriving. They have a whole new series of books on "the science and practice of ecological restoration".
http://www.islandpress.org/content/index.php?pid=103

Restoring some semblance of native vegetation is often difficult, but can sometimes be rewarding. Now if only there were a how-to manual on restoring a certain flowing-water, nutrient-poor (but rather alkaline) ridge-and-slough wetland in southern Florida.

By contrast, restoring abused saltwater shorelines in Florida can be expensive, but the results can do wonders for migrating songbirds. Planting new vegetation after hurricane Andrew wrecked the Australian pines at Key Biscayne's Cape Florida State Park has brought back birds, spectacularly. The same's now happening on nearby Virginia Key.

'Morning, Boodle. Dave, hope you feel better quick. C'mon, Scotty, Cassandra, somebody put the coffee on; it's time to get up and go to work.

In the Style section, Paul Farhi has a nice piece on "investigative humorist" Adam Chodikoff, chief researcher for Jon Stewart's Daily Show.

OK, more after the commute.

God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

Morning, friends. What's up, Dave. Scotty, are you typing while I'm typing? And Mudge, so glad you got the modem thing worked out, and up running.

Slyness, get up, time to run, or is it walking?

Martooni, how's the bread? One of these days I'm going to get enough money to buy a fairy door. It will remind me of Error, and I do miss him.

Well, it seems after not throwing Rev.Wright under the bus, he comes out swinging, and not very nice to Obama. African-American churches are just as different as the people that attend them. Some are so quiet, and others, almost raise the roof. One can't lump them as one size fits all. It doesn't work that way.

Busy day today, and time to get started. I'm going to make a small cake for the Bible study here, and that will be it. Bad times have hit that too.

I went to the grocery store yesterday, and I wanted to cry. There weren't that many people in the store, and those in there, like myself, were moving slow, and not picking up much. When I got to the check out counter, I had the clerk to stop twice so I could check the price. And I was not the only one.

I've said my prayers, and prayed for everyone here, and asked God for blessings, and that we all know the power of his love through Christ. It is good to pray. Have a great day, folks.

Sorry you don't feel well, Dave. I read your post and still asked that silly question. I don't think it registered at the time. I hope you feel better. I had something yesterday morning.

Wednesdays are mornings I sleep in, so instant coffee it is. Taste better and cleanup is just a matter of putting a spoon in the sink.

Morning, Cassandra!

I'm more or less fine, but will probably need to take the day off from work due to having been kept awake Monday night, then sleeping much of the day Tuesday. Then being awake all night.

This (early) morning's project was figuring out what to do about my house's nice twelve-year-old over-the-range microwave that turned off, for good, yesterday. They're fairly expensive!

I'm up, Mudge, I'm up!

Running, Cassandra? Heavens no, I'd fall and kill myself for sure. Walking is all I can handle, especially first thing in the morning.

Weather.com says the temp is 38 but I'm not seeing any frost. I'll take the towels off the tomato and peppers in a little while.

Gooood morning, everybody!

Cool night here too slyness, we got a fresh 0C/32F this am. Beautiful sunny morning though.
Taxes are all done and e-filed. What a pain. I'm afraid of the numbers now. The total of our combined taxes looks like a comfortable income a few years back. At least the marginal tax rate has fallen below 50% (46% this year), we had the impression of working for nothing a few years back. At the height of the Lib era in Ottawa and the PQ in Quebec city the marginal rose to 52%. Oy.

I'm here too, just wading through the usual first-thing-in-the-morning stuff. And some not-so-usual financial stuff, but in a good way. :-)

More fodder for fuel ranting:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042903092.html?hpid=topnews

*trying-even-harder-to-drive-55-these-days Grover waves* :-)

Morning all. Given the topic of disaster I am a little concerned that Joel's friend Carl Hoffman hasn't posted anything at the Lunatic Express since 22 April. I hope he has not encountered a disaster.

http://thelunaticexpress.blogspot.com/

And perhaps public transportation can make a comeback...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902814.html?hpid=topnews

:-)

cassandra - I hope the food prices aren't causing you too much pain. Food, like gasoline for many, is something that is hard to do without.

Thank you also for your description of the great variation among African American churches.

Finally, speakin' of food prices, I think the WaPo series on the Global Food Crisis is really top-notch. The interplay between food, oil, economics, and ecology show how intricately linked the peoples of the world have become.

Book news for boodlers: Tony Horwitz has published a new book--

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/books/30horw.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Horwitz is very good at writing about history in a way that makes it fresh and relevant and amusing--kinda like that other guy we all appreciate around here. I'm putting this book on my to-read list right now.

Weingarten's gonna get all weak in the knees -- Sally Forth's getting meta again... :-)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/comics/king_sally_forth.html?name=Sally_Forth

Morning! Just catching up after a yard work-intensive weekend and a got-to-get-ahead-so-I-can-go-on-vacation work week.

Sneaks and Maggie, hope you're on the mend. bc, I'm so sorry about about your co-worker. Mudge, I'm glad your Internet connection finally got straightened out.

frosti, dmd, I was afraid that I was the only one who couldn't look away from the AI Neil Diamond train wreck. Dang! It left me with a wicked "Sweet Caroline" toon cootie.

SCC: tune. Stupid fingers. Or brain. Or both.

g'morning boodle! Off to St. Paul this afternoon for a "Governor's Summit" on after-school opportunities that will consume most of tomorrow. Not sure it will be worth all the travel time but if I've learned anything as mayor it is that if you don't show up you get worse than nothing-you don't have a say in how you comply with and report whatever you get $0 for doing.

Thanks Raysmom, I feel better being in good company. I have vowed to quit watching when David Cook gets eliminated.

Kb-thanks for the heads up on the Horwitz book. _Confederates in the Attic_ is one of my all time favorite books of the "amusing yet somehow scholarly" variety.

Yoki,

I take genuine umbrage.

I was not comparing Bush to bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, or Jeffrey Dahmer. He is his own independent, unique form of evil.

I made a fairly hyperbole-free observation that can be supported by statistics.

The inflation adjusted price of oil was $33.39 in 2000, $31.62 in 2003, $64.92 in 2007 and $115.92 today.

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp

Judging by that information alone, and ignoring all sorts of other causality issues, which world event had more impact on the global price of oil, the World Trade Center attack, or our invasion of Iraq?

The dominoes may not have fallen the way bin Laden thought they would, but the end result was the same. His use of a few thousand dollars worth of airplane tickets did about ten billion dollars worth of direct damage.

Our response has cost one trillion dollars already and that could easily double or triple. Those are astounding multipliers.

The damage that the Bush Administration has done to our economy, American and Iraqi lives, and our moral reputation is several orders of magnitude greater than anything that bearded fanatic could have ever hoped for.

That puts President George W. Bush in a category all his own.

Good morning boodle.

cassandra - I was thinking yesterday, as I listened to all the kerfuffle about Jeremiah Wright, that many people on all sides of the kerfuffle were talking as though African American churches are all the same. How ridiculous! Thanks for your perspective.

kbertocci - great link! Now I know what to give the hubby for Father's Day.

Put me in the group that thinks the gas tax holiday is a bad idea on many levels. The ripple effect of that small, short-term "holiday" seems all negative to me.

I recently traded in my Pacifica in for a Honda Accord. Now that my kids are in high school I am not hauling around 6-7 kids all the time and I couldn't stand driving around in that big thing all by myself. It really does give me a little boost every time I fill my tank for a little more than half of what I was paying and drive for about 5 days longer before I have to do it again.

Sweet Caroline tune cootie! That was the song playing for my first ever "slow dance"
in 7th grade. Awwwww.

Kim, it gets even worse. It's the baseball game version: "So good! So good! So good!"

frosti, I'll join you in the AI boycott when David C is eliminated.

But...but...but...*sputtering* ...AI is my favorite steak sauce! No way I'm boycotting it!

Good morning, all.

Dag. Now *I* can't shake that "Sweet Caroline" cootie. Oh, well, it'll make a good sing-a-long in the Bunker.

Mudge, glad to see you're back online at home.

cassandra, RD, etc., I've noticed that my trips to the grocery store pinch a bit more than they did just a few months ago as well. I sure wouldn't mind an extra $20 to help with that.

yellojkt, you're saying that all of this - the deteriorating global and national economic situations (including the mortgage crisis and the fall of the dollar), rising prices for fuel and food, and the general lack of cooperation from other nations on anything - is attributable to Bush's invasion of Iraq?

Well, perhaps there's a good case to be made for that.

bc

In a word, yes.

The single most fundamental turning point fiasco as a result of over-(and mis-)reaction to a terrorist attack since maybe the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Remember that the West won WWI but at the cost of the British Empire.

Steven Pearlstein had an excellent explanation for rising gas and food prices in today's Business section:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902880.html

In short, it's the latest speculative bubble (after tech stocks and real estate), made possible by the creative minds on Wall Street who create derivative instruments to get around financial regulations.

I've always had a special loathing for the word "instrument" when used in financial circles. I run into it all the time in sociological and polling material I have to edit, and I always change it to "questionnaire" (or whatever the better term may be. "Instrument" in these cases is both jargon and pretentious beyond my level of acceptability (which is admittedly fairly hig