Good Morning, everyone.  I simply had to take the day off yesterday.  I did go through my Google Alerts, e-mail, and usual blogs.  But simply found I didn't want to read anything closely or comment on anything.  Not that there weren't any items worth commenting on.  I simply didn't want to comment.  Part of the reason is that I sometimes feel that I sound like a broken record and, having said all I want to say on a topic, don't want to repeat myself more.  Besides, there has been little good news anywhere lately.  The economy is still in the toilet.  The Republicans still define 'bipartisan' as 'you give up your agenda and adopt ours or we won't play.'  More jobs are being cut across the board.  What can be said about all that that hasn't already been said.  Worse, almost all of the comments (politically, socially, or economically) tend to support the notion of going back to the cancerous growth of the early Bush years and not questioning whether or not that growth was healthy.  You can guess my opinion given the descriptor 'cancerous.'

Someone who has questioned the socio-economic relationships that dominate our society is NoImpactMan.  He makes some very good comments in his latest post.  I love the picture at the top of the post.  We not only work the most of any society on earth we also are the most medicated, with anti-depressants among the most prescribed medications.  But how do we break this pattern.  How many of us can get by on one job? Or on a 40 hour week?  At various times over the last ten years, I looked at my work arrangements and tried to calculate what I would need to make my basic living expenses, which are definitely not extravagant.  When I worked at the party supply store I would have had to work an 80 hour week.  I only got 24 for most of the time I worked there.  I would have needed three more of those jobs to just eke out a living.  At one, thankfully brief, time I had three.  I was such a basket case you could have used me to illustrate the meaning of the term 'bitch.'  Why should anyone be required to kill themselves to make a living?  And now, of course, getting and keeping even these jobs is difficult.

For the last week or so the talking heads on CNBC have alternated between those guests who deplore the 'bonuses' given to Wall Street employees (below the level of CEO many of whom have 'foregone' their bonuses) and those who defend the 'bonuses.'  I put the term in quotes because, as a couple of interviewees have pointed out, these payments are actually a part of the expected compensation for employees whose official, base salary is much lower.  Many hired on with the expectation that, come hell or high water, they would get those payments.  What most aren't saying, and some of the younger ones can't remember, is that this system arose out of a great public outcry back in the 1980s over salaries that had reached stratospheric levels and during another economic downturn.  Instead of outright salaries much of the compensation was shifted to 'bonuses' and other benefits (cars, expense accounts, etc.).  It was basically a way to mask the true level of compensation and appear that the companies (and their governing boards) were more 'responsible.'  Unfortunately, the practice is at odds with ordinary Americans' understanding of what a bonus is and how it should function.  Bonuses were awarded when the company did well as a (usually small) token of appreciation to the workers who made the profits possible.  If the company didn't do well--no bonuses.  Even very productive employees did not get anything extra if the company as a whole did not perform.  In today's economic climate, those who did well should simply be glad to keep their job (with, maybe, a small raise to encourage them) and those who did not should join the unemployment line.  No one should get bonuses that are several times their base salary.

As I read this story in the timesoftheinternet, a thought crossed my mind. I have heard a lot of criticism, mostly from business and investment types and conservative Republicans, of the stimulus package--especially the part that calls for iron and steel used in the various construction projects to be purchased from U.S. companies.  Most claim it is protectionist and could lead to a round of tit-for-tat measures from our trading partners that would simply deepen the recession, as such measures did during the 1930s.  Unfortunately, though they may be right, they are also behind the times.  They assume that the U.S. would be starting this process when in fact, according to some of the stories I have read, other countries, including some of our largest trading partners, are intensifying protectionist policies that predate the downturn.  Furthermore, the 'anti-protectionist' camp has to face the fact that ordinary people want some form of protection for their fragile economic existence.  We have heard snippets of the problem rising unemployment in China but very little about the demonstrations in France, England, and Eastern Europe, many of which have turned violent.

Good Morning, again. Hope everyone is doing well in spite of the big storm. We got off fairly lucky. Only about 3 inches (official total) of snow. Everyone hopes for some warmer weather. I look at our towering mountains of snow and hope it isn't too warm too soon. Can any one spell 'run off'? After the serial floods last year we reall don't need another round this year.

Meadowview Thymes has some pictures of the ice storm down Texas way.

I must be suffering from a mild case of 'God, I can't wait for winter to be over.'  We stopped in at the local Home Depot to see if they were starting to get their spring seeds in.  We looked at several large racks thinking what we might pick up.  Before we went the rule was 'no buying yet just look.'  Suddenly Mom asked 'You're not going to buy that, are you?'  I still had a packet of seeds in my hand.  I did put it back.  We are not ready to buy yet but the compulsion was very strong.  God, I REALLY can't wait for winter to be over.

Well, the Republicans, every damned one of them, voted against the stimulus package.  Anybody surprised?  I wasn't.  For years now I have translated their promises of compromise as a demand for total capitulation on the part of others.  Joe Sudbay summed up the situation at Americablog.  

"It shouldn't surprise anyone that the same Republicans who played politics with the Iraq war are willing to play the same games with our teetering economy. That's what they do. Hopefully, the Obama team has learned something, too. If the other side isn't really negotiating in good faith, you're just negotiating with yourselves."

Entitled to Know tells us that a new bill has been introduced to that will require Medicare to negotiate prices with the drug companies.  At last.  I will be so glad if we finally break the drug companies iron fist on this.  When private insurers are reaping vast payments from the government, using those payments to undercut government programs, and then gouging the same government with high non-negotiable prices---we are all getting screwed.

Dean Baker at TPM Cafe talks about the newest schemes to form a 'bad bank' to allow the Feds to buy up the toxic assets too many banks still have on their books and still have not written off (because then everyone would know how bad their situation really is.)  Here is the new face of the 'Welfare Queen.'  Remember when that term first came into being?  What was the image the press gave us?  Fat, black, female sitting on her lazy backside while her half a dozen kids, each with a different father, were causing trouble all over the neighborhood.  Now instead we have thin, white, male bankers dressed in expensive suits sitting in expensively decorated offices bemoaning how the greedy poor forced them to make loans that wouldn't be paid back.  Don't you just love it?  And I will leave you to guess who is the more culpable.

By the way, wasn't the TARP supposed to buy up those bad assets--I mean, before Paulson started playing fast and loose with the money and changing the ground rules?  Silly me. I must have been hallucinating.

Good Morning, again.  The storm that hit the plains and Ohio valley spread a little further north than the weather people originally thought.  However, we have been lucky.  Only snow and, perhaps, only an inch or two.  If it is light and fluffy enough all we will have to do is sweep a path to our patio gate.  It did put a monkey wrench into our plans.  We have to do our shopping and pay rent.  Since the rest of the week looks no more promising we will do that today.  But the trip up to the Harbor for Mexican and tamales will wait.

Thanks for the tip on Pat Catan, Kay.  Unfortunately, from what I see on their web site, they are only in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  And, though they have a web site, they don't have an on-line store.  Too bad.  It looks interesting.

Tripping through the blogs I found another cute coaster pattern at Inspired Crochet Design.

I do hope that our nasty winter is not going to be followed by an equally nasty summer.  I don't want the same kind of weather the Sustainable Self-Sufficiency Blog describes for that Land Down Under.  Australia is bracing for what could be a 100 year heat wave.  I found a site that converts the celsius degrees to fahrenheit.  That 40 degree + temp--that translates to 104+ over here.  For those who don't know Australia has been in the grip of a prolonged and very severe drought.  Some time ago, back when rice and other commodity prices were going through the roof (along with oil),  I saw a news report that claimed that they lost better than 90% of their rice production to the drought.

I found this article at Reuters by way of John Aravosis at Americablog.  I hope that the spokesman for the 'corn refining' industry is right and their cleaning materials no longer contain mercury.  However, I am concerned somewhat because high fructose corn syrup is as ubiquitous as salt in most of our prepared foods and condiments.  And the products can stay on supermarket shelves for a very long time.  I wonder what a new round of tests with products currently on the shelves would yield.  Perhaps the researchers, or the FDA??, will repeat the tests.

This AP article on Yahoo news (by way of Chris In Paris at Americablog) explains exactly why I remain skeptical about any of the bailouts.  What has happened smacks, to me, of hiring the doctor who broke your leg to set it.  It makes about that much sense.  What burns me most is that, in any sane economy, they would have been not only fired but, possibly, prosecuted for failing in their fiduciary duties.  A store clerk whose register comes up consistently short gets fired.  These bozos get bonuses.

How familiar this sounds.  According to the Guatemala Times, the Guatemalan government gave one of their major banks a TARPesque bailout touting the same rhetoric and justifications as the Bush Administration.  And with basically the same results.  What was Einstein's definition of insanity?  Oh, yeah.  Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.  I don't think their outraged language is strong enough but can't figure out how to say it stronger without getting deeply into profanity. The mug shots of Al Capone at the top certainly set up the article.  Thanks to Bob at PureLandMountain.

 Good morning, all.  It is still frozen here.  No sign of a warm up and we are expecting some snow.  How much no one really knows.  The main storm stayed south of us.  I did get out yesterday.  The car started with some complaint and then proceeded to scare the life out of me.  I sat and watched the gas gauge drop from slightly more than three quarters to just under half over, maybe, 30 seconds.  Gathering my wits, walked around it looking carefully for any sign of gas puddled underneath.  Didn't see any so I got back in and watched the gas gauge again and after a couple of minutes it started to go back up.  I breathed a sigh of relief and went about my errand.  Before I finished the needle was back up to the three quarter mark.  Did I mention it has been cold around here?

I was able to get a new knitting spool at Michaels  but the entire needlework section is so sparse that I was very disappointed.  I think I will be working entirely from my yarn stash for some time to come and may make my next purchase on line.  I remember about twenty years ago when Michaels shifted to a fad I didn't want to follow.  I didn't go into any Michaels store for over a decade.  I did have a choice of knitting spools between three plastic and one with metal pegs embedded in ceramic.  None of the plastic inspired my confidence that they would last any longer than the last one did (about 2 months--it broke on my second project).  So I went with the ceramic.  We will see how well it stands up.

Well, it is obvious that Citi 'doesn't get it.'  They prove it by contracting to buy a $50million jet and then justify the action by claiming that they didn't use any TARP money to do so.  Bulls**t.  They could have used that $50million to bolster their business directly instead of engaging in conspicuous consumption.  Worse, they chose a foreign supplier.  This is just like AIG holding those 'seminars,' or whatever, at pricey resorts after receiving their bailouts.  What is wrong with these idiots??  Chris In Paris at Americablog has a few choice words and a link to one of the stories.

And Robert Reich at TPM Cafe has another entry in the category of inappropriate expenditures or institutions that have received a bailout.  Now that the second half of the TARP has been released, the banks, et al., are lobbying congress to impose restrictions that are few and light.  Why should they be allowed to spend OUR money that way.  They have screwed up so badly and yet they want to be allowed to screw up even more.  I think ALL institutions that receive government bailouts should be barred from lobbying.  Including the auto makers.  I am sure that they are very unhappy that the Obama is reviewing EPA restrictions and California's request for a waiver from Federal Regulations (since their own are more stringent.)

To move from EPA regulations to climate change--this little story was at the BBC site.  For some years now, when Mom and I have discussed the 'global warming' controversy (or climate change, if you prefer), I have expressed skepticism.  Not about whether climate change is real and not about whether humans are now a major cause of it.  Rather I am skeptical about whether we could generate the political and social will to slow down (much less reduce) the release of carbon in its various forms.  Also I have been very skeptical about the time tables put out.  By the time even a majority of people realize there is a problem and can come to some agreement on solutions, the problem has grown to Godzilla-size.

I found this little item on the Consumerist by way of digg.  Just when I think I have already seen the ultimate in mean-spirited money grubbing something else comes along.

It is still really frozen here and not likely to get any better before early next week.  Blast-- because I have to go out today.  One peg on my little knitting spool broke--mid project.  I am going to try to take the piece off and secure it with a safety pin.  Luckily I am very close to the end of the color I was using so I don't have much on that end to deal with.  I would make my own but I don't have any empty spools and those that are close to empty are all plastic or styrofoam.  Oh, well!!

I haven't seen much to comment on or pass on.  so I will make it a very short day.  Bye for now.

Good morning on this very frosty Sunday.  The weather people last night showed statistics that indicate this winter has been among the 15 snowiest and coldest winters on record.  It certainly feels like it.  We are supposed to have sunny days even if they are cold.  Good.  It is so much easier to do needlework in strong natural light.  A couple of years ago we purchased a couple of daylight balanced fluorescent floor lamps hoping they would help.  They haven't really.  We work the projects that require good light when we have it and I do those that don't in the evening.

The news last night had an update on the salmonella situation.  In the middle, Mom exclaimed "Oh, God, turtles are on the list."  She had been given a box of the candies for Christmas and we just opened them yesterday.  In fact we had each just eaten them.  I doubt there is anything to worry about since the brand is not in any way associated with the recall.  But it does make you sit up and take notice.  We are also watching the pet foods.  So far our feline lords and masters are fine.  The recalls appear to be limited to the dog food isles.  I do feel for dog owners.

Donna commented yesterday on my post yesterday that we may never know the ultimate cause of the contamination but she thought it might be a Tyson style concentrated animal feeding operation.  CAFOs seem to have been nearby in at least one such incident (the spinach recall).  Grist had some stories on the increase in e. coli contaminations of ground beef associated with the beef feedlots.  Last night one lawmaker (sorry, I don't remember who) was on the news mentioning the lack of a field-to-table safety system in this country.  She is pushing for such a system.  Problem--how do we track the large amount of food that comes in from outside our borders?

Kay wondered how I stand MSNBC.  In small doses actually and with a good deal of skepticism.  But I do that with ALL news media, which, to my mind, have shifted from real news to entertainment.  They cover, incessantly but superficially, anything dramatic making sure that the drama (if not the information) is heightened as much as possible.  I go to MSNBC because I have, and have for years, had a hotmail account.  It has served me well so I haven't changed.  Every now and then something catches my eye in transit. But I always read with my skepticism antennae on high alert.  As far as FOX goes, the only thing we watch on that station is 'Bones.'  The 'news' pegs my irritation meter within seconds if I happen to get there by accidentally hitting the wrong button on the remote.

Patti Haskins has put some 'Pickles' comic strips featuring a needlework theme.  The exchanges remind me of a conversation with my husband at that time.  He complained that he couldn't quit smoking because he needed something to do with his hands.  I told him he should take up needlepoint (a craft I then indulged in).  Huffily he rejected the notion because it wasn't manly.  I pointed out that Rosie Greer, a retired football player, did needlepoint.  He merely commented that he wasn't built like Rosie Greer.

Dean Baker at TPM Cafe notes that the banks are coming back for more money after having burned through $350 billion with little to show for it.  He says it is enough and I agree.  I hope that the Obama Administration looks deeply and carefully into where the money has gone and takes serious names and kicks serious butt.  Especially if another the circumstances laid out in another couple of stories are in any way true.  A couple of weeks ago a '60 Minutes' segment detailed the working of speculators, many associated with some of the largest banks, in running up oil prices.  One expert interviewed (sorry, I can't remember the name) called Morgan Stanley 'the largest oil company in the country.'  Add that to this post by Raymond J. Learsy on the HuffingtonPost which claims that these banks used TARP money to speculate in oil and it is enough to get your, and my, blood pressure up.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to remember that TARP was 'sold' to our lawmakers as a way to unfreeze the credit markets.  Methinks we have been sold a pig in a poke, a bill of goods, what ever other phrase that comes to mind to describe a fraud.

Robert Reich at TPM Cafe has an excellent term to describe TARP and other bailouts--'lemon socialism.'  Taxpayers, via the bailouts, 'own' the lemons while the 'capitalists' keep the good stuff and make even more money.  Sounds like the assessment others have made about our whole, allegedly, capitalist banking system--Socialism for bankers and capitalism, with all its penalties and few of its rewards, for the rest of us.

That is about all for today.  It is definitely time for breakfast.  Keep warm, everyone.

Good Morning, this frigid Saturday.  It isn't as bad as it has been.  Our temps did not go as low as the weather people forecast.  I got out to the library Thursday and saw numerous little mountains of snow everywhere.  Those will be with us well into Spring unless we get a long string of 60+ days.  Hope we don't because the flooding will be something else again.  A slow melt would be so much better but I am not taking any bets on what we will get.  Weird weather has been a by word for the better part of the last two decades.

The list of peanut containing products under recall keeps growing.  According to MSNBC this morning some 125 products are now listed, including some dog food.  I, for one, find the amount mind boggling--31 million pounds.  And according to the article the company, Peanut Corp., isn't one of the industry giants.  More evidence, as if we needed it, of the dis-economies of scale.  Before anyone realizes there is a problem it has spread to every corner of the country.  I wonder how many breathed a sigh of relief when the problem of melamine-tainted products was limited to pet food or to products only sold for human consumption in Asia?  I don't think we had all that much to be relieved about.

Barefoot In The Garden has an interesting and funny comment on our current situation.  Obama inherited something already so broken he can't do any more damage to it.  In spite of all of the dyed-in-the-wool conservative Republicans bleating about free markets and small government (where HAVE they been over the last eight years?),  there is little system left to conserve.  The situation can get worse thanks to the momentum of events created by those same free market conservatives who forgot that greed is one of the seven deadly sins.