new use for South Main Elementary

Did you know that they finally have some cool stuff going on across the street from me at the old south main elementary building here in BG?

There is karate and tai chi as well as Belly Dancing and Kundalini Yoga classes right here in BG. They also do community drum circles, community knitting circles, and a dance center for dance lessons all right here in Bowling Green.

Anyway, thought I would share that.

keep rabbits out of your garden

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260352241764

dude, seriously

what a great way to stop rabbits from pooping in your garden!

2009

Well, it's 2009.

I don't think I need to recap 2008 for anybody reading this, as you most likely lived through it yourself. I will however list a few things I already knew, but were reinforced in 2008.

• Bureaucracies are a lot like an an ancient Greek maze with a Minotaur roaming around in it. But in this simile a ball of thread won't do you as much good as a long handled pooper scooper. . .what? Minotaurs have a digestive system too, you know.
• It's so much harder to stay healthy than it is to savor European chocolates and watch good TV shows.
• Americans were living above their means
• Life is like a box of chocolates. On the clearance rack. At Big Lots.
• Some other things that I would type if my hands weren't in so much pain.

Some New Year's resolutions for 2009

• To increase my IRA/401k plan purchases until this market turns around. If it doesn't, we'll be screwed anyway, so why not buy low and cross my fingers?
• To pay down debt more aggresively
• To do more fun things
• To stop typing so much at home.

another fraktastic web video

http://www.imeem.com/flummery/video/qrsaWFB9/flummery

Doctor Who and a Cake-like song. I'm almost in heaven.

Oh yeah, and I finally saw the 2004 Punisher, not great, but perhaps not as bad as some have said.

Crisis Solved?

I'm thinking of sending this in to my local newspaper, and comments/revisions for me?

I just can’t understand why everybody is worried about the economy. Not only did John McCain, who is renowned for his honesty and integrity, state quite clearly that the fundamentals of the economy are strong—he also promised to “suspend [his] campaign and return to Washington” and “meet until this crisis is resolved." Two days later he attended the debate and resumed his campaign, so I guess that means the crisis is resolved— what do you think?
If it doesn’t seem solved to you, maybe McCain’s economic advisor Phil Gramm was correct back in July, maybe this is really just a “mental recession”. Maybe McCain’s economic advisor was right when he said “we’ve sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about our loss of competitiveness”. Maybe he was right.
Or maybe, to put it in McCain’s own words, he still needs to be “educated” about the economy. It’s too bad, as McCain has reminded us, that “we’re in a time in our history where you can’t afford any on-the- job training.”

My 2 cents about the financial sector bailout

Here's my idea, feel free to share it with your congressional representatives:


As part of this financial sector bailout, why not create a mortgage interest tax CREDIT up to a certain amount (say, $4000), which would not only help people struggling to pay their mortgages (thereby adding some stability to mortgage-backed securities), but also act as an economic stimulus when homeowners get back larger tax refunds and/or reduce their withholding?

www.senate.gov

www.house.gov

But act quickly, they are likely to vote soon.

Mental Illness in the eyes of McCain and Obama

The follow web page on the National Alliance on Mental Illness' web site includes the responses received from McCain and Obama when asked to complete a questionnaire:

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=2008_Primaries_and_Elections&Template=/ContentManagement/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=55411

The responses speak for themselves, but just in case you don't have time to check this out, let me summarize by saying that the Obama campaign completed the entire survey, with specific comments and examples of legislation he would support, while McCain refused to complete the survey, and gave a 3 page written "statement on mental health" which (in a thinly veiled manner) stated that the best way to address mental health issues is to have one doctor (presumably your PCP) treat you for all conditions, and he also gave a reminder that he believes personal responsibility plays a role in the treatment of mental illness (while this is true, it seems again to be a thinly veiled way of saying he blames the mentally ill for their illness, but that's just my slanted take on his comments).