The Buzz: It may soon be time to worry about the weak dollar - Oct. 14, 2010

Is the dollar toast?

By Paul R. La Monica, editor at largeOctober 14, 2010: 12:47 PM ET

The Buzz is now on Twitter! Follow me @LaMonicaBuzz

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In Gary Shteyngart's brilliant new novel "Super Sad Love Story," he envisions a not-so distant nightmarish future for the United States where the dollar has essentially no value and China gets tired of backing our worthless debt.

Fortunately, it's just a satire. Or is it?

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The dollar has sunk like a stone in recent weeks. With the euro now at $1.41, nobody's seriously talking about parity any more. There are growing concerns about the trade deficit in the United States and the possibility of trade and currency wars -- particularly with China.

And with the Federal Reserve strongly hinting that a new round of bond buying -- the so-called quantitative easing policy -- is likely to be announced at its next meeting in early November, long-term bond yields could continue to sink.

That may put pressure on the dollar and make our nation's biggest creditors, i.e. China and Japan, increasingly wary of holding debt that offers such little in the way of return.

So is it time to worry yet about the anemic dollar? Investors in stocks are strongly saying no. As the chart at the top of this column shows, the market has tended to move higher even as the dollar weakens against a basket of major currencies, which includes the euro and the yen.

The bet is that the weak dollar is good news for big multinational firms like IBM (IBM, Fortune 500), Coca-Cola (KO, Fortune 500) and McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500). It should lead to increased demand for U.S.-made goods and services abroad -- particularly in hot emerging markets like China and India.

But how long can that last?

Several experts said the dollar does have some room to fall further before it becomes a problem. But not that much room.

"We're not in a danger zone yet. However, the dollar is rapidly depreciating so the time to worry could come up more quickly than people realize," said Andrew Busch, global currency and public policy strategist with BMO Capital Markets in Chicago.

Busch said something has to give soon though. If bond yields continue to fall and the price of gold keeps hitting new record highs, then that's troubling for the dollar.

Fred Fraenkel, vice chairman with Beacon Trust Company, an investment firm in Summit, N.J., agreed that the time may be coming where the sluggish greenback does more harm than good for the economy and markets.

"Right now, the positive impact the weak dollar has had on exports and multinational earnings has so far overwhelmed the impact of people in the financial world looking for a different place to invest their reserves," he said.

"But when you degrade your currency over a long enough period of time, it's a negative for your standing in the world and reserve currency status. That's the big problem that can eventually come back to haunt you," Fraenkel added.

Degrade is a strong word. It implies that there is a conscious effort to make the dollar weak. And in some respects, that is what's happening.

Keep track of the dollar, euro and all other currencies

The Fed is clearly making the decision that it's willing to let the dollar fall a bit more because it thinks a new round of QE could help get the economy back on firmer footing in the short term.

The big concern though is that the Fed may be going too far. If the dollar gets so weak that the likes of China and Japan pull out of the U.S. debt market and other nations find that there's no incentive to invest here, then Shteyngart's fiction could become reality.

"The dollar had been rallying earlier on a flight to perceived safety," said Anthony Welch, co-manager of The Currency Strategies Fund, a mutual fund specializing in foreign exchange investments in Sarasota, Fla. "Now the behavior of the dollar is a function of our economic policies, which people can argue are not really that sound."

The dollar is still about 13% above its all-time low against the euro from two years ago. So it's definitely not panic time yet. But Welch said the Fed can't get too carried away or the dollar could fall to new lows.

"We've been here before. But the dollar needs to stabilize around current levels. If it doesn't, there's cause for worry," he said. "I would imagine the Fed doesn't want the dollar to disintegrate and go too low. I hope that's the case."

- The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney.com, and Abbott Laboratories, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.  

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Economy stinks. Why's the market happy?

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Dear 20something: Your future

Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your Future

 

Dear 22 year old:

Now that you are about to graduate from college some Baby boomer ought to level with you about your fiscal future.   Maybe you’ve heard about it already in the news (though few of you ever listen to “the news”). Here it is straight up: your economic future isn’t as rosy as we hoped, but you will survive.

 

In the next 40 years, unless we do something drastic, our country will spend way more than the whole GDP. This is impossible to sustain, so something has to change. Maybe you will understand the dilemma of our nation though, since you are probably graduating with about $40,000 worth of school debt and your first job will bring you less than that a year—you will personally reach the 100%-of-GDP situation long before the nation gets there.  Both the country and you personally have to face the music.  But don’t despair, you are up to it—and so are the Boomers, if you lead us.  Action hasn’t been desperately required yet, so both parties are dilly-dallying. Once action is demanded I’m confident we Americans will bite the bullet and do the hard thing.  Both of our generations will feel that crunch.  But it won’t destroy us—we’ll survive.

 

So, what can you expect in the future? It is hard stuff, but not impossible. Though no politician will tell you this, I’ll be truthful—you can expect both reduced government services and higher taxes.  Just one of these actions won’t solve our economic problems, though cutting-before-raising is preferable to many of us. Here’s is my opinions on the economic future you face in the coming decades while Boomers climb into the passenger seats and you take over the steering wheel of this country:

 

EXPECT REDUCED GOVERNMENT SERVICES

 

1. You probably won’t collect Social Security until you are 70.

The numbers just won’t crunch. Forget retiring at 67. Count on age 70, or even later.  Luckily, you will have more than 20 years to live when you reach 70, so you will be retired longer than any generation before you—even if you wait until 70. Though physical workers in your generation who crawl under houses or dig with shovels will retire at 70 many professional workers (like ministers) will copy Wilbur Williams and work right until they are 80.

 

2. You won’t to get Social Security unless you stop working

Boomers were generous to the “greatest generation” before them and built all kinds of giveaways into the system. We let them collect their Social Security even if they kept on working. You won’t be able to do that…and you probably ought to take away that benefit away from boomers now. When you get in charge, I suspect you won’t let people collect a penny from Social Security until they actually quit hogging their job—you’ll want them to leave that job opening it up to others, for instance you. The sooner you make this change the better—it is a boondoggle we could afford for the Boomer’s parents—but you can’t afford it for us Boomers.

 

3. Your Social Security will become “needs-based.”

Right now millionaires can collect Social Security.  In 2058 when you are 70, if you retire with a handsome savings account that produces $100,000 a year interest, I bet you won’t be able to collect Social Security on top of that like people do now. Social Security won’t be a retirement plan—it will be a safety net by then.  The sooner you make this change the faster the country will balance the books.

 

4. Government welfare will be greatly reduced.

The generation before us and the Boomers wanted government to do nice things for people—so we made “helicopter government” which you understand because your parents still pay your cell phone bill.  The country decided to pay for the education of all the “Greatest Generation” when they came home from the war through the expensive “G I Bill”—not loans, mind you, but outright payments. Then we decided to help all kids go to college by offering grants and then later (by your time) interest-free loans until the graduation payback time occurs. My generation offered help for single mothers to buy food for their children—we thought that was kind. We decided to help people who lose their jobs by offering unemployment checks until they got back on their feet. Your government probably won’t be so generous. (We weren’t really that generous actually, because we borrowed most of the money we gave away and you’ll be paying that off—your inherited generosity?) To be practical, you probably shouldn’t expect government subsidized educational loans for your own kids like your parents had for you.  You might have to be your own kids’ bank when they need $40,000 for college like you did (they’ll need more). This means you have to get out of debt yourself as fast as you can, then save like crazy so you have some money by the time your own kids go to college.  (Or, home-college them.)

 

5. Health care rationing is coming.

Right now we think old people are entitled to health care no matter what it costs. In the future it will be technologically possible to keep your mom alive for years so long as we are willing to fork out a million dollars a year. In your world Medicare and Medicaid won’t be able to afford million dollar heart transplants for 85 year olds.  This will be hard to swallow for us pro-life Christians, but its coming.  You might face it with your own parents.  The only folk who will be able to add another six months to their life for a million dollars will be people who have a million dollars of their own money to pay for it.

 

6. Your nation won’t be the world’s military. 

Your nation won’t be able to afford so many periodic middle east wars like those in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Even these “little wars” will just cost too many Billions of dollars for your nation. Instead you’ll be paying back the money we borrowed for the Boomer wars instead. You might even end the V.A. and shelve the notion that once someone serves in the military they are entitled to free health care the rest of their lives. 

 

 

BUT YOU SHOULD ALSO EXPECT TO PAY HIGHER TAXES

I’m a fiscal conservative so I think we should cut first then raise taxes.  But either way we won’t be able to pay down the national debt by cuts alone. Even all the above cuts in government won’t make your nation solvent. Sorry, we just owe too much. You will have to make all these cuts in government services just to get the budget nearer to balancing—to actually balance the budget and pay down the debt you will have to pay higher taxes too… like these:

 

1. Closing the welfare-by-deduction loopholes.

One of the ways the government gives welfare to people is exempting some of their income from taxes. It isn’t a direct payment but it is a government gift just the same. I suspect one of the ways your generation will “raise taxes” is close some of these deductions and exemptions.  To start with you’ll probably shut down the government subsidy for ministers by eliminating the tax-free status of a ministers housing allowance. Ministers don’t pay any income tax on their housing or housing allowance.  When I explain that to your generation you always think it is wrong so I suspect you will close up that loophole in the tax system. It will cost us ministers several thousand dollars a year but you say you’re going to make this change “to equalize things with laity.”  You also think a minister living in a parsonage for free ought to pay income taxes on the value of that parsonage—so, even though it affects you personally, I suspect you close this loophole…alone with all kinds of other deductions… like tax-free insurance from an employer, deductions for interest on mortgages, and about a hundred thousand other deductions and exemptions for individuals and business. Many of you favor something like a “flat tax” that only exempts the bottom $20,000 of income… (we’ll see if you keep that opinionwhen you earn more than $20,000 ;-)

 

2. Higher Social Security taxes.

Right now we Boomers (with our employers) pay 12.4% of wages as Social Security taxes—it is “taken out of our paychecks.”  To finish fixing Social Security you can expect these taxes to go up to 14.2% of your wages—half paid by you and the other half by your employer. If you are self-employed (like most ministers) expect your bill to rise to 17%

 

3. Higher Medicare taxes.

While there is more attention paid to the “Social Security crisis” actually Medicare is closer to meltdown than Social Security. We Boomers now pay (on top of our Social Security taxes) an additional 2.9% of wages as Medicare taxes. You can expect to pay as much as 5% of your wages in the future—even after you’ve made all the cuts above.

 

4. You will probably have to pay income taxes on your inheritance

When the Boomers die they’ll leave Trillions of dollars to your generation. Boomers allowed themselves to receive their own inheritances as tax-free income (up to a million dollars or so). Though Boomers never “earned” this money we allowed ourselves to inherit our first million without paying any taxes on it. (Our rationale was that our parents already paid taxes on it when they earned it and thus we were entitled to it tax-free.)  You probably won’t have that advantage.  When we boomers die off and leave you whatever money we have left, you’ll probably expect everyone to pay income taxes on their inheritance just like they earned it from work.

 

5. You’ll have to pay income tax on all your Social Security when you retire.

Right now couples who earn less that $44,000 get a free ride on paying taxes for most of their Social Security income—you will probably close that gate. In fact, you will probably enact this early so Boomers have to pay taxes on their Social Security income too—after all we will be a large cohort in retirement so taxing us will be wise.

 

6. You can expect a national sales tax.

Even all the cuts and taxes above won’t get your country completely out of the hole—if you really are serious about balancing the budget and paying down the national debt you’ll probably have to also enact a VAT—a Value Added Tax.  Your “National Sales Tax” would be added to products at each stage of production so that you won’t be able to buy a shirt for your toddler at Wal-Mart for five bucks any more—it will cost $7 including the VAT. You may say, “So what—that’s only two dollars.” But, since your real wages will not rise like ours did, you won’t be able to buy as many shirts for your toddler—or anything else.  You aren’t headed for abject poverty, but you will be able to buy fewer shirts for your toddler and fewer new cars if you enact a VAT.  Luckily, your generation already likes to buy things at Goodwill so you might consider keeping that habit in the future—especially if you enact a VAT.

 

-------------------

Sorry about all this… but some boomer had to tell you the truth.  Unless there is some phenomenal change in the world, like figuring out how run our cars on water, heat our homes with air, or we invent a Fusion-in-a-Coke-can machine, your future appears to be one of less government services and higher taxes at the same time. That is, if  you really want to “fix the fiscal problem.” Of course, you could be like your parents and cut taxes to yourself, and raise government benefits and borrow the difference—but that won’t work long because eventually nobody will eventually lend to your nation and everything will collapse in one great economic Alt Ctrl Del.

 

But I think you’re up to it.  I have taught your generation for a few decades and I believe you can handle this challenge. You have already rejected the notion of being rich. You don’t think you are entitled to a mansion—in fact giant houses turn your stomach. You aren’t impressed with multi-million dollar mega-churches. You live simply, serve locally, and recycle. While you have been pampered and helicopter parented like no generation before you, at the same time you seem content to live in a modest apartment, drive a used car, and work part time “until something better turns up.”  I’ve gotten to know scores of you over the years and most of you expect things in your future to be far worse than what I described above. Many of you think “I’ll never collect a penny from Social Security” and “I’ll never get out of debt until maybe I’m 60 or so.” So, the picture I just painted above might actually be encouraging to your generation, given your own economic bleakness! 

 

All this won’t to happen right away because the cheerful Boomers (after all, we invented the have-a-good-day smiley face) will pretend this crisis will go away if we all just spend more money “to get the economy moving again.” But that won’t work in the long run. Our generations together have to figure out how to do two things that are repugnant to both of us—reduce government services and increase taxes. Just like you 20somethings will have to live on less to pay off your $40,000 college debt, we as a nation have to do the same thing to do penance for our past fiscal profligacy. But you are up to it! And so are we if you lead us. Don’t expect boomers to lead on this issue. Boomer rhetoric says all the same things but in actuality boomers want the opposite—greater government service (to us, at least) and lower taxes. You’ll have to lead the country to do the opposite—reduce service, increase taxes and get out of debt.  We boomers will eventually be willing to take some of these cuts ourselves as we admire your own example of modest living and reduced income. We can do this together.  And since many of these cuts will affect Boomers in our old age—you may have to count on your mom or dad moving in with you, or leaving your job to take care of your dad when he has Alzheimer’s because your government might not be able to pay their thousand-dollar-a-week nursing home bill though Medicaid.

 

But we can do this, even though its hard.  All this is actually not that much harder than what you’ll be doing personally in the next five years. You might be a youth pastor earning $30,000 a year while paying off a $40,000 school debt. This can be your practice session for what the nation has to do—live on less and pay more.  Boomers will follow you if you step up and lead. We can do this together.

 

I’m not writing about Republicans, Democrats or the Tea Party this week.  No matter who we elect we will have to do these things. Everyone will be a fiscal conservative in the future. Parties aren’t the issue, money is.  In Grant County, Indiana where I live, all the Tea Party candidates are running as Democrats!).  This column is not so much about political parties as about fiscally conservative policies.

 

What I’m asking this week is this: What are the other “cuts” in government we need to make in the future—especially cuts in the benefits we personally receive (anyone can cut others’ benefits). And what other loopholes need shut that increases revenues for government so we can work our way out of debt—or at least reduce the debt and balance the budget? 

 

 

So, what do you think?

The discussion of this column is on Facebook:   http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=161502633

 

Keith Drury   October 12, 2010

 www.TuesdayColumn.com

 

CREDITS: I am indebted to several people for the fiscal data on which this column is based. First to Michael Kinsley’s article The Least We Can Do in  The Atlantic, October 2010  and second to The Global Budget Race, by Douglas Besharov & Douglas Call in The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn, 2010 (and to Steve Lennox for the gift subscription to the WQ;-)

 

via drurywriting.com

All my nieces and nephews need to read this!
The discussion of this column is on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=161502633

Keith Drury October 12, 2010

www.TuesdayColumn.com

CREDITS: I am indebted to several people for the fiscal data on which this column is based. First to Michael Kinsley’s article The Least We Can Do in The Atlantic, October 2010 and second to The Global Budget Race, by Douglas Besharov & Douglas Call in The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn, 2010 (and to Steve Lennox for the gift subscription to the WQ;-)

Red Mud

The reason the "Red Mud" spilled in Hungary is burning people is it has a pH of between 10 and 13. Here's an info graphic on the pH scale. This red mud is between ammonia and lye in its alkalinity!

For more on Red Mud visit Wikipedia.

The manufacturing future

On O'Reilly Radar I ran across this piece by Dale Dougherty and a pointer to a companion piece by Intel's Andy Grove. Read for yourself and then ask yourself, "whom does our financial sector serve?"

DooDah Bbrownies

Craving brownies, but you'd like to minimize the "hit" from oil, eggs, etc? And, by the way, need some more fiber in your diet? Well, its DooDah brownies to the rescue.
Google produced 182,000 hits on the topic of "brownie bran flakes recipe". Here's a representative recipe.

Never content to leave well enough alone, my Daughter (aka DooDah) and my wife came up with this slight variation.

Ingredients:

• 3 Cups Bran Flakes
• 2 Cups water
• 11/2 Teaspoons of Baking Powder

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Cover the bran flakes with the water and allow to sit until the water has been absorbed. Stir occasionally.

In a separate bowl blend together the brownie mix and baking powder.

When the bran flakes have absorbed the water and have softened, add the wet bran flakes to the brownie powder. Stir until all the brownie mix has been wetted by the bran mush.

Use either a standard size or mini muffin pan. You could also use a quadrilateral baking pan, but this will lengthen the baking time.

Put a "blast" of cooking spray in the bottom of each muffin cup of your chosen size pan and spoon in the batter.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean from the center of a couple of muffins.

Allow to cool for five minutes and then turn out onto a rack.  The muffins will be very soft at first, but will firm as they cool.

The muffins are moiist and delicious and to me, taste just like a brownie.

Good for meals on the go or as a snack or desert.

Firecracker Recipe

No... Not those  kind of firecrackers!

I'm a big fan of Alton Brown's Firecracker Carrots recipe. while not hugely complicated, it is some effort. I recently discovered another way to pickle carrots. I used an 80 ounce jar of Claussen's kosher dill pickle spears! After finishing the spears, I added two-thirds of a pound of mini-carrots to the leftover brine. Additionally, I added the brine from some store-bought "spicy" pickles which were amped up mostly by adding horseradish and dried chilies to their brine. We had a third of a cup of sliced jalapeños with juice leftover in the fridge, so I added that as well! I put the Claussen pickle jar of carrots with the amped up brine back in the fridge for a week and I have to say I'm pleased with the result.

The carrots still have a bit of crunch and the jalapeños and horseradish lend a pleasant burn to the experience.

Recommended!

Read This...

To remember what July 4th is all about:

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Red Mars: Part II

I've downloaded a second copy of the free Red Mars PDF from Suvudu. I put it through the same conversion steps that I used originally: Attempting the conversion from PDF to MOBI using both Calibre and Stanza.  I got the same results with this second round of conversions. After converting the Red Mars from PDF to MOBI format the bulk of the book is inaccesible; all that is visible is the table of contents and this message about purchasing the ebook and physical versions. 

Enjoy science fiction,
fantasy, horror, manga,
videogames, movies,
and graphic novels?
Visit Suvudu.com for news, videos,
community, interviews,
contests and much,
much more!
Purchase a physical copy
of this book:
Amazon 
BN.com 
IndieBound
Borders
Powel's
Random House Read al the books in this thril ing series:
Red Mars
Physical Book
eBook
Green Mars
Physical Book
eBook
Blue Mars
Physical Book
eBook

Either Suvudu cooked the PDF so as to "break" when a conversion is attempted or was ham-fisted about inserting the above text and broke the PDF in a way that causes a problem with the conversion process.

Regardless the PDF is useless for reading on the Kindle1. which was probably their intention all along.

Red Mars: Free but not Open

Back in March of this year I saw IO9's posting about the free download of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars ebook in PDF format. I snagged it immediately and eventually loaded it into Calibre along with the rest of my ebook collection. So far, so good.

Last night I was looking through my ebook collection trying to find some Sci-Fi to load on my Kindle. I found Red Mars in Calibre's book listing and decided I would put that on my Kindle (a classic Kindle, BTW). I set Calibre to the task of converting Red Mars from PDF to MOBI format for transferring to my Kindle. The conversion completed normally and I transferred the MOBI version of Red Mars to my Kindle. Much to my dismay the viewing the MOBI version of Red Mars only showed the Table of Contents and then displayed a message about dowloading the ebook from Amazon.  Thinking that there was a problem with Calibre's PDF to MOBI conversion routine I fired up my copy of Stanza and used it to convert Red Mars PDF to both MOBI and the native Kindle format, AZW.  Both these fomats behaved the same way.

I now believe that the free PDF of Red Mars is DRM'd to prevent conversion to any other format.  Something all the breathless gushery about Random House's release of Red Mars seems to have missed. For now, I've not deleted Red Mars from my collection and I did download a different copy of the PDF and I'll repeat the conversion process to see if the same issue occurs.

But for now: GUILTY AS CHARGED!

Scribefire from Ibex901

Testing Scribefire blogging tool from my 901 eeePC running eeeBuntu.

Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.
   -- J.R.R. Tolkien

DeFacto Gun Control

From the self-fulfilling prophecy department....

There was much talk earlier this year amongst the Internet media about the unprecedented demand for gun ammunition; mostly .40 and .38 caliber bullets. The general consensus seems to be Oh My God! Look at all those Liberal Democrats in the Congress and the White House. There gonna ban guns and ammo for sure or The country's falling apart, its everyman for themselves! Buy guns and as much ammo as you can afford and then buy more just in case.

These dire predictions, initially began appearing in late February 2009. Now in September,2009 there are Internet media reports indicating that either the shortage is continuing or that it is easing.

My point in all of this? Hoarding ammunition and over buying resulted in at least nine months of an ammunition shortage that effectively acted as gun control legislation. All the dire predictions over impending government action and law-making against hand guns, their ammo and other firearms effectively used economics to limit a gun owner's ability to purchase and provision their arms.

One would hope that the supporters of gun rights would educate their constituents about the economics of the situation so that they do not impose this inadvertant form of gun control on themselves.

Calibre: Ruler of eBooks and eReaders

I've inherited She Who Must Be Obeyed's Kindle 1 when we got her a Kindle 2 for its text to speech capability. I like the Kindle hardware, but have never been enamored of Amazon's store/DRM web that the want to trap you in. While listening to TWIT a few weeks ago someone in the irc chat mentioned that a open source software package called Calibre was a way use your Kindle without entering the Amazon web.

I've been using Calibre now for about 3? months and have been very impressed. Calibre runs on the Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.  It stores and indexes your ebook collection, will convert ebooks among various formats.  All of the information about the  ebook is only stored once in the database creating  the concept of a logical book.  All the major ebook  formats are supported, as well as plain text, PDF. From Calibre's FAQ:

calibre supports the conversion of many input formats to many output formats. It can convert every input format in the following list, to every output format.

Input Formats: CBZ, CBR, CBC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC**, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, TXT Output Formats:EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, TXT

After Calibre converts your ebook to a format compatible with your ebook reader it can sync the format of your choice onto your reader.  For me, this means converting ebooks to the MOBI format and then syncing the MOBI format onto my Kindle 1.

Calibre supports SONY PRS 500/505/700, Cybook Gen 3, Amazon Kindle (1 and 2) and the iPhone (with the stanza reader software). Syncing supports updating metadata on the device from metadata in the library and the creation of collections on the device based on the tags defined in the library view. If an book has more than one format available, calibre automatically chooses the best format when uploading to the device.

You don't need an ebook reader to reader books stored in Calibre. Calibre has a built-in content server that allows you to read ebooks through a web-browser.

Scribefire from Anda

Hello all;
Testing Scribefire from my Ubuntu laptop Anda.

Lets see what happens....

Nobody is talking abouth THIS part of health Care: http://bit.ly/110jpd

Past as Prelude

Here's a look at what the past predicts about the future of Health Care if we get don't get reform: http://bit.ly/Ot0ZI

Know What you Eat

Want Better Journalism? Be a Smarter Media Consumer.

Dan Gilmor nails it. http://bit.ly/WF2F4

A Robot that Eats for Fuel

DARPA fundees Robotic Technology of Potomac, Md., and Cyclone Power Technologies of Pompano Beach, Fla have come up with a scheme that marries autonomous driving with an engine/generator that can run on any fuel including biomass. See this PDF for details: http://bit.ly/eatr. Original story at CNET: http://bit.ly/wKlaj

The CrunchPad's OS?

Since the Crunchpad (http://bit.ly/PDHBH) is a dedicated browser tablet and the Chrome OS (http://bit.ly/amS7O) is a linuxy OS designed to mostly run a browser, doesn't this sound like a marriage made in heaven?

XKCD speaks Truth

http://bit.ly/c7WIj

The Dumber the Better

An excellent piece by connectivity guru Bob Frankston. He argues that society needs "Dumb Pipes" for carrying Internet services and current Telecom Carriers aren't it. http://bit.ly/dumbpipes

Cyborgs in the House

http://bit.ly/rlKVW Continuing work at the University of Utah has yielded the first device that detects brain signals without have electodes inserted into the brain.

An Arab's View of Iran

A very cogent piece of writing from Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi of Dubai on the dilemma Iran poses to the rest of the Arab world. http://bit.ly/go2qU

How Cool is This?

A mouse trap that's powered by digesting the mice it catches. http://bit.ly/MMxR3
Seems perfectly symetrical to me.

Courtesy of Doonesbury: http://bit.ly/tScJ

Rest in peace; you've earned it: http://bit.ly/farah

Beginning the fun of getting eeeBuntu on Wife's new eee900a netbook. Had to juggle the boot order to get the thing to boot from a USB dvd drive.

Just added the PingFire plugin so I can post to Ping.FM thru Firefox. No posts coming thru to gTalk, though.

The Great Mashup Continues

Okay... So now I've "wired" together Twitter, Blogger, and gTalk via ping.fm.
This should be interesting.......

Testing... 1...2...3... Is this thing on?

Posting here at ping.fm. Lets see where it comes out ;-)

Book Banner?

Yet another elected official who wants to inject her religious beliefs into the workings of government!

Sarah Palin, would-be banner of books - Boing Boing

Sarah Palin, VP nominee

Books Palin wanted to Ban

Time magazine article about Sarah Palin

And this woman will be a heartbeat away from the presidency

The Mayonnaise Jar

One of my co-workers sent this around and I thought would share the sentiment:

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. H e asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions --- and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else---the small stuff. 'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. 'Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.' The beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers with a friend.

Iced Coffee

I've been a fan of ice coffee for a long time. When She-Who-Must-Be -Obeyed sent me this article from our local newspaper, I was hooked.

I've purchased a 4-cup coffee press and will be pursuing the production of "coffee syrup" for making ice coffee.

Here's the original link: courier-journal.com | Ron Mikulak - Cooking blog | The Courier-Journal

How to Do an Energy Policy

Just finished reading a column by Thomas Friedman on his visit to Copenhagen. Seems the Danes took the 1977 oil embargo to heart and raised energy taxes to encourage development of energy efficient technologies.

Result: Denmark is completely independent of OPEC oil imports.

Read the whole Friedman piece: Op-Ed Columnist - Flush With Energy - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Spotted on EcoWorldly

First Served

We are seeing lots of articles about Ethanol and Bio-diesel as sources of competition for oil-based products. We are all lusting for the day when we can but sub $3 E85 into our cars and trucks and thumb our noses at the "other" fuel. It occurs to me that the bio-fuels industry would be best served if it "ate its own dog food." I don't want to see ethanol or bio-diesel delivered in trucks powered by petroleum products. I want the bio-fuels industry to run as much of their infrastructure on bio-fuels as possible.

Same goes for farmers. Every farmer in America should have easy access to as much bio-diesel and ethanol fuels as they can use to run their day-to-day operations. Every farm town in America should have its own bio-diesel plant to keep the local farmers supplied. If there's enough demand put an ethanol plant there, too. Give the folks that produce the feedstocks for food, feed and fuel access to low cost fuels and we all win.

The bio-fuels industry will be seen as a more serious competitor to oil-based fuels when a significant portion of their production and delivery is "bio-powered."

Cloud Computing... Is Here

If you don't think Cloud Computing is here watch this and then read this and this.

Wild West Weather

Here's a weather alert from the Reno, NV's National Weather Service Office:
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRAVEL ACROSS THE SIERRA PASSES. ATTEMPTING TO TRAVEL IN THE SIERRA WILL PUT YOUR LIFE AT RISK! VERY HIGH SNOWFALL RATES WILL MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ROAD CREWS AND EMERGENCY PERSONNEL TO KEEP ROADS PASSABLE AND TO ASSIST STRANDED VEHICLES. IF YOU DO ATTEMPT TRAVEL IN THE SIERRA YOUR CHANCES OF BEING STRANDED FOR MORE THAN A FEW HOURS IS VERY HIGH. REMAIN INDOORS DURING THIS BLIZZARD...EVEN A SHORT WALK OUTDOORS COULD BE DEADLY AS YOU WILL BECOME DISORIENTED IN THE WHITEOUT CONDITIONS. EXTREMELY HEAVY SNOW WILL OCCUR THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING WITH SNOWFALL RATES OF UP TO 6 INCHES PER HOUR. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING WILL BE 3 TO 5 FEET ABOVE 7000 FEET WITH HIGHER AMOUNTS ALONG THE SIERRA CREST...AND 1 TO 3 FEET BELOW 7000 FEET...INCLUDING THE LAKE TAHOE BASIN. STRONG WINDS WILL CONTINUE THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT...WITH THE MOST DANGEROUS WINDS FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING. WIND GUSTS UP TO 70 MPH WILL BE COMMON WITH GUSTS NEAR 145 MPH OVER THE SIERRA RIDGES.

Via Belski's Blog

Keith Olbermann Buries Rudy Giuliani With Truth

Keith Olbermann is the new Edward R. Murrow.

Madison on War

Of all the enemies to the public liberty war is, perhaps, the most me be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debt, and taxes are known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
~ James Madison 1795-04-20

Democracy....

... is the best revenge - Benazir Bhutto

For the Space Geek

NASA's Planet Quest web site has a Widget for your Yahoo Widget desktop to keep count to the extrasolar planet discoveries.

Its on my desktop. Is it on yours?

Creationist Periodic Table of the Elements

Project Steve

(Project Steve): "Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools."

How Many of Me

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 87 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Crush

Heard on Adam Curry's Daily Source Code... Kinda reminds me of Captain Beyond.

Old Media Company Steps Up

News.com is reporting that Sony BMG is asking muscicans to blog about their demos rather than sending in hard copy. Sounds like the fore shocks of a media company trying to re-invent itself.

Hope it works out for them. Might be a way to avoid extinction.... Nah... Not Sony.

Technorati Tags: Sony BMG, blogs, demos, extinction

XML and Twitter and Weather, Oh My!

So with the advent of Twitter-mania I've been playing with it. However Twitter has become a victim of its own success, with the site being slow at the best of times and unresponsive at worst. So I've found a couple of alternatives to using the Twitter web site to post my status/thoughts. Since I'm a Widget fan I've discovered the Twidget which allows you to post text to Twitter with just a couple of clicks.

I wanted to post my local weather conditions to Twitter just to see if I could get a Linux command line poster working. Turns out you can! Although I first looked at the Twitter API it needed/used some stuff I'm not familiar with. So I asked the great and all-knowing Google and found a post over at Tech@Sakana which gives a script-based solution to push text onto your Twitter page using cURL.

The command line built using cURL looks like this:
curl --basic --user username:password --data status="Having fun with cURL" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

Not to bad. Works great even when the twitter site is unresponsive.

Now for the Weather. Turns out that the National Weather Service (NWS) offers an XML-formatted file of the current weather conditions updated hourly. But... Having tried to use the native Linux tools to extract data from XML files I know how kludgy or even impossible it can be. I once again petitioned Google and found Xmlstarlet. Xmlstarlet is a command line utility from Sourceforge that can read and write XML files. In my case, I can use Xmlstarlet to extract the weather conditions I want from the XML file I download from the NWS.

Now I could build a script that collects the current observation file from the NWS, parses out the weather conditions I want to report. Builds a string of those conditions and sends them off to Twitter. Here's what it looks like:
#!/bin/bash

cd ~/weather

mv -f KLOU.xml KLOU.XML

wget -q http://www.weather.gov/data/current_obs/KLOU.xml

# At $now it is $temperature in $location with winds $wind

#Now
now=`xml select -T -t -v //observation_time KLOU.xml|cut -d" " -f6-8;echo ""`
#location
location=`xml select -T -t -v //location KLOU.xml|cut -d" " -f1,5;echo ""`
#Temperature
temperature=`xml select -T -t -v //temperature_string KLOU.xml;echo ""`
# Winds
## wind=`xml select -T -t -v //wind_string KLOU.xml|cut -d" " -f2-10;echo ""`
wind=`xml select -T -t -v //wind_string KLOU.xml;echo ""`

conditions=`echo At $now it is $temperature in $location. Winds: $wind.`

echo $conditions

curl --connect-timeout 5 --user johniac:******* --data status="$conditions" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

If I'm going stick this into cron and have it run regularly, I need to add some locking code so that it won't run over the top of itself if Twitter or the NWS starts hanging connections. And of course that leads to the obligatory SMS messaging if a second instance trys to run. Maybe in version 2 ;-)


Technorati Tags: twitter, curl, xmlstarlet, nws, api

In Memoriam: Gerald R. Ford

By the President of the United States of America a Proclamation

Richard Nixon became the thirty-seventh President of the United States on January 20, 1969 and was reelected in 1972 for a second term by the electors of forty-nine of the fifty states. His term in office continued until his resignation on August 9, 1974.

Pursuant to resolutions of the House of Representatives, its Committee on the Judiciary conducted an inquiry and investigation on the impeachment of the President extending over more than eight months. The hearings of the Committee and its deliberations, which received wide national publicity over television, radio, and in printed media, resulted in votes adverse to Richard Nixon on recommended Articles of Impeachment.

As a result of certain acts or omissions occurring before his resignation from the Office of President, Richard Nixon has become liable to possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States. Whether or not he shall be so prosecuted depends on findings of the appropriate grand jury and on the discretion of the authorized prosecutor. Should an indictment ensue, the accused shall then be entitled to a fair trial by an impartial jury, as guaranteed to every individual by the Constitution.

It is believed that a trial of Richard Nixon, if it became necessary, could not fairly begin until a year or more has elapsed. In the meantime, the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former President of the United States. The prospects of such trial will cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States.

Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9,1974.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-ninth.

GERALD R. FORD

And Now This Message

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail,
not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
—Baruch Spinoza

You can make a difference.
Support the Skeptics Society’s donation drive
and support rational skepticism and science education
The Skeptics Society is a member-supported 501(c)(3) non-profit scientific and educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, professors and teachers, and anyone curious about controversial or revolutionary ideas, extraordinary claims, and the promotion of science. Our mission is to serve as an educational tool for those seeking clarification and viewpoints on those controversial ideas and claims.

About our work
In 2006 the Skeptics Society made strong inroads into the media as well as educational institutions through dozens of lectures at colleges, universities, and high schools around the country, through hundreds of media interviews on radio and television (most notably on Intelligent Design creationism, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and alternative medicine claims), and through dozens of opinion editorials, reviews, essays, commentaries, and articles published outside of Skeptic magazine, furthering our reach into communities not traditionally steeped in science and skepticism.

Of course, we maintained our usual activities of sponsoring a dozen monthly science lectures at Caltech, hosting our annual conference at Caltech (on The Environmental Wars), publishing Skeptic magazine, eSkeptic newsletter, and Junior Skeptic magazine, maintaining our website, and fulfilling tens of thousands of orders through our catalogue of science- and skepticism-related books and DVDs. We are able to do this, and much more, thanks to your support. And so, on behalf of the Skeptics Society, our staff, volunteers, and members, we thank you for your support in our 2007 donation drive.

Donations make it happen
Your donations support our media appearances and provide millions of TV viewers and radio listeners with a skeptical, scientific viewpoint.

Without your support, we couldn’t send Dr. Shermer around the country to discuss and debate paranormal and science controversies. Without Dr. Shermer’s voice on television and radio, in lecture halls and magazines, your rational point of view would be sorely lacking in public discourse. When you see us presenting the skeptical side of the argument, you are seeing your donation dollars at work.

Many members choose to support the Skeptics Society with financial contributions above and beyond their membership fee — please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us further our goals and accomplishments in 2007.

The rewards
Those of you whose contribution fits a donation category below are eligible to receive the following:

Patron — $5,000 or more
Dinner with Michael Shermer and a world-renowned scientist (to be announced), and a private insider’s tour of the Mt. Wilson 100-inch telescope used by Edwin Hubble to discover the expanding universe, and use of the 60-inch telescope for the evening for a private star-gazing party. In addition, you will also receive the three gifts listed below.

Benefactor — $1,000 or more
Two complimentary tickets to the 2007 Skeptics Society Conference at Caltech on War & Terrorism (NOTE: NEW DATE October 26–28, 2007) plus you will also receive the two gifts listed below.

Sponsor — $500 or more
A three-year subscription to Skeptic magazine for yourself or a friend, plus choose a gift listed below.

Supporter — $100 or more
One free book of your choice:

• Why Darwin Matters by Michael Shermer
• The Bible Against Itself by Randel Helms
• The Root of All Evil? Richard Dawkins’ DVD documentary
• The Soul of Science a pocket-booklet by Michael Shermer

DONATE to The Skeptics Society

Also of interest…

• LEARN more about skepticism
• LEARN more about our work
• LEARN more about Dr. Michael Shermer
• SEE LIST of past Caltech lectures
• EXPLORE our Reading Room
• SIGNUP to receive eSkeptic

Technorati Tags: Skeptics Society, Michael Shermer, skepticism

RIP: Dot n Dash

The last of my original pair of ratties, Dash was put to sleep this morning around 9am.  She had developed three tumors, wheezing when she breathed and was loosing weight fast.

Dash's sister, Dot died in September.  She developed two tumors and even though I knew what needed to be done I let nature take its course and she died

Right after Dot passed, I noticed that Dash was showing signs of tumors in front of her left hind leg and behind her left front leg.  I promised myself I would not repeat what happened to Dash.  Last weekend my son found Dash had a third tumor growing on the side of her head I realized that it was time to let Dash go.  On Monday I called the vet and made an appointment for 9am Saturday.  The work week helped to keep the event in the back of my mind as the days went by.  So a little before 9am today, I took a small box down to the cage where Dash and Stella live and opened the cage door.  I put a little of the used bedding in the box to reduce the strangeness.  Dash came out of her den to see what was up and I put her in the box.

About half way to the vet the realization of what was happening hit me like a ton of bricks.  I kept it together until Doctor Sam came in to explain how the procedure would work: Dash would be put into a deep sleep using an anesthetic.  Once her pain response was gone, he injected her which killer her instantly.  He was really understanding and kind to this blubbering 50-year old man in front with him.

I was there with Doctor Sam and Dash for the whole procedure.  It went just as he had described and now Dash is at peace.

I managed to get home with only a couple of sobs, but when I got home and sat on the bed telling my wife how it went, I could finally release all the emotion.

I was really surprised at the depth of the emotion this triggered.  This was what was best for Dash, but the wrenching sadness was still very intense for a short time.

Had errands to run this afternoon and a nap this afternoon helped as well.

So now its Stella in the big cage all by herself, but not for long.  Six month old sisters, Phoebe, Piper and Paige have come into our lives.  They are getting acclimated to our house in the small cage right next to Stella's cage.  We'll have meet and greets this week and there will soon be four ratties in Dash's house.

>JjV<
---------------------------------------------
When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I've never tried before.
Mae West

Recipe: Corn Pudding

Here's the Corn Pudding recipe I've used twice already this holiday season. Its really more of a spoon bread, and not a souffle.

Works for me....

Corn Pudding

1. 2 Eggs, Beaten
   
2. Can of Cream Corn (14.75 oz)
3. Can of Whole Kernel Corn (15.25 oz)
4. Jiffy Mix Corn Muffin Mix (8.5 oz box)
5. 1 Cup Mayonnaise
6. 1 Cup Sour Cream
7. 1 Cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
8. 1 Stick Salted Butter, Melted and cooled slightly

Preheat oven to 350'F. Mix first six items together until uniform. Add shredded cheddar in three increments while mixing gently. Add melted butter and mix until uniform. Bake in either a 3qt Casserole or 9x11 pan. Grease pan with baking spray and add batter. Bake at 350'F for about 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Variations:
Served warm topped with Maple syrup or Honey
Served with Chipolte Seasoning
Add a can of chopped chilies to the batter before baking.

More variations can be found in this write up at the Augusta Chronicle newspaper website.

Technorati Tags: Corn Pudding, Recipe

Recipe: Green Bean Casserole

We finally had the requisite Green Bean casserole for dinner this past weekend.  I thought I would blog the official French's French Fried Onion recipe here for posterity.

Green Bean Casserole
Prep time: 5min  Cook Time: 35min

• 3/4 Cup of Milk
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
  
• 10 3/4oz Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup
• 2 - 15oz cans of French Cut Green Beans, Drained
• 1 1/3 Cups of French's French Fried Onions

Preheat Oven to 350ºF

1. In a 1½qt casserole dish mix all ingredients except 2/3s of a cup of the Fried Onions
2. Bake for 30 minutes at 350º.
3. Sitr; Top with remaining Fried Onions
4. Bake an additional 5 minutes or until onions are golden brown.

Variations:
Change the soup to Golden Mushroom or Cream of Celery,
Add diced Portabello Mushrooms.
Replace pepper with Cajun, Chipolte or other spice blend.


>JjV<
---------------------------------------------
The superior man is distressed by the limitation of his ability;
he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability he has.
Confucius


Technorati Tags: Green Bean Casserole, Fried Onions, Recipe

Science Editor

I have agreed to be the Science editor for Blogcritics SciTech section. While I've written for BC in the past as an author, the whole editor thing has been an interesting shift in perspective.

Now I've got to find some science writers to help me fill out this section. Anyone interested in doing some pro bono science writing should email me for more information.

>JjV<
---------------------------------------------
If you understand, things are as they are. If you do not understand, things are as they are.
Gensha, Zen Master

Technorati Tags: Blogcritics Magazine, Science writing

Supreme Court & Global Warming

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard arguments about reversing a lower court ruling the the EPA does NOT have the authority to regulate Carbon Dioxide, a greenhouse gas believed to be contributing to Global Warming.


The Scientists who run the Real Climate climate change blog have provided an Amicus Curiae brief to SCOTUS.



Below are the three main arguments that the brief makes:

I.
The Science of Climate Change Indicates that It Is Virtually Certain that Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Cause Global Climate Changes, Endangering Human Health and Welfare

II.
EPA and the Court of Appeals Mischaracterized the Science of Climate Change, Making It Appear More Uncertain Than It Actually Is.

III.
EPA Did Not Apply the Standard of Scientific Evidence Set Forth in the Clean Air Act.


You can find the entire brief online. The publicity this decision will raise (either way it goes) will go a long way to increasing the public's attention on this topic.

Technorati Tags: Real Climate, SCOTUS, Amicus Curiae

Snow Wishes

>JjV<
---------------------------------------------
Rule of Acquisition #284: Rules are always subject to interpretation.

Pumpkin Goodness

She Who Must be Obeyed found this recipe whilst browsing through a Goose Berry Patch Halloween catalog. The recipe is called Pumpkin Cobbler and comes from their Classics Pumpkin Cookbook".

Pumpkin Cobbler

1. 3 Eggs, beaten
2. 15-oz can Pumpkin
3. 12-oz can Evaporated Milk
4. 1 cup Sugar
5. 1/8 teaspoon Salt
6. 1½ teaspoon Cinnamon
7. 1 teaspoon ground Ginger
8. 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
9. 1 8¼ oz package Yellow Cake mix
10. 1¼ cup Margarine, melted
    
11. 1 cup chopped Nuts

Preheat oven to 350'F. Mix the first 8 ingredients together; pour into an ungreased 13" x 9" baking pan. Sprinkle cake mix over the top; drizzle with margarine. Bake for 25 minutes. Top with nuts and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Makes 15 to 18 servings.

My modifications:

I replaced the Ginger and Cinnamon with 2 teaspoons of Pumkin Pie Spice and the Margarine with Unsalted Butter. Left off the nuts and baked it in a 8" x 11" pan and extended the baking time to 50 minutes total.

Suppress Public Disorder

The Toward Freedom web site has an article describing John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed in a private Oval Office ceremony on October 17th.

This law allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

Vote American

Technorati Tags: H.R.5122, Martial Law President Bush

Finally... Forward Thinking

Its great to see University Hospital and the Metro Health department both conducting mobile flu shot delivery programs. If there is ever a pandemic flu incident which requires the vaccination of a large number of folks, these programs will provide valuable experience.

Kudo to both organizations!! The full article is below so you can read it even after it dissapears behind The CJ's paywall.

Drive-thru flu shot clinic a hit even in rain

By Katya Cengel
kcengel@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Ed Lincoln rolled down his car window, rolled up his shirtsleeve and, in a matter of minutes, had a flu shot.

Lincoln, 70, said both he and his wife, Helen, 69, are fans of University Hospital's Drive-Thru Flu Shot program, which was held from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. yesterday and is planned again Tuesday at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium.

The program was the first in the nation when it began in 1995. The annual program was moved and expanded this year to test the hospital's ability to help handle a mass, communitywide immunization.

"We wanted to see if we could be truly mobile," said Linda Goss, the hospital's director of infectious diseases.

The service was expanded from two lanes to three, and a second tent was added, separating the paperwork part from the actual shot, Goss said.

The result was the ability to service about 300 cars an hour instead of the usual 200.

And despite yesterday's foul weather, Goss said, everything went as planned. The effort indicated the hospital would, if necessary, be able to quickly administer antibiotics to a large number of people in a short time.

On Monday the Louisville Metro Health Department will conduct a similar test, administering free flu shots to 1,000 people starting at 11 a.m. at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

And while the rain was expected to cut into the program's usual number of about 3,000 people served over two days, the weather actually prompted Tyrone Taylor to get his shot.

"I figured there would be less people out," said Taylor, who is 54 and lives in western Louisville.

Reporter Katya Cengel can be reached at (502) 582-4224.

Technorati Tags: Louisville Metro Health Department, University Hospital, preparedness, pandemic

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They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.
Thomas Jefferson

I'll Drink to That

Research done by the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, has found a a neuronal mechanism that may help explain the link between alcohol and improved memory. Testing on rats indicates that a couple of drinks a day improved the rats memory.

Cheers......


Read the entire article.

Email Etiquette

Pay attention all you folks who like to forward those inane emails to everyone in your email address book:



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For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and big words Bother me.
Winnie the Pooh

Nerd Score

Here's how I scored on the Nerd Test from NerdTests.com:

Not too big a surprise to those who know me ;-)

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The American public knows what it wants,and deserves to get it good and hard.
H.L.Menkin