New Garage Doors

The two Russians are done installing the two new garage doors and I think they look great. They are almond color and have an automatic opener. Step one on the house remodel. We got the doors from Sears and thought since we have a Sears in Grass Valley the door installation would be through them, but the installers and the doors came from Sacramento.
There is a huge Russian community in Sacramento. These two came from north of Moscow. So Bill told them that he had been to Moscow before and to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. They were very interested in the rest of the remodeling, but we have enough local contractors that we do not have to import Russians from Sacramento.

Oscar-Nominated Short Film

Data, Data so much data to digest

Just what does this all mean?? At least it is good for a laugh.

Smell Fish

Great safety information I had never heard of: I knew that if you smelled an ozone like smell and if you saw sparks flashing from an outlet, that meant that you had a fire hazard. But I had never heard, that if you had an elusive smell of fish, you could have a potential fire.

Fight over stimulus money

Cities and States fight over the infrastructure money in the stimulus bill. Read more.

The Children of the Mountains

Watched a special on 20/20 last night. The people of Appalachia have been neglected since Bobby Kennedy was killed. He was a champion of helping them and there has been no coordinated effort since. They have been preyed and prayed upon. They are afflicted with Mountain Dew mouth. Even babies drink it and it is one of the reasons the adults have no teeth. Doctors in the area have been encouraged by Pharmaceutical Companies to prescribe addictive narcotic pain relievers for everything. Leading to a huge prescription drug addiction problem. Coal mining is the best paying job. But even if the company looks out for basic worker safety, there is the issue of black lung. These people off the beaten path live short miserable lives. They are only encouraged by their faith in salvation. Isn't this what gives all downtrodden some hope, but little everyday help. Schools are so poor that even if you manage to graduate from High School (and few do), you are going to have trouble with college. Look at the faces of the children and you see that they could be anyone's children. Look at the faces of the adults and you see the effects of poor nutrition, poor schooling and drugs. We need a new war on poverty to save the children.

A Reason to Go First Class

I am the parent who joined Facebook

Most of my friends are children and grandchildren. This is one reaction.

Something interesting about China

Why all the problems with adulteration and poisons from China?

Chinese society follows a very different set of rules, ones partly derived from Confucius, in which ideology counts for nothing and results count for everything. In this system, the end justifies the means all the time; “truth” is not a matter of great concern. In the Confucian scheme of things, the “truth” is merely contextual–you just say what is appropriate in the circumstances, not what actually is the case. This is what, from a Western point of view, would be called amoral, but the Chinese see it as simply pragmatic.

From http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

Maybe Peanut Corporation of America has also been following this philosophy?

Sierra

Sierra is in the Hospital. After a lot of blood work it has been determined that she has some sort of unknown infection. So they are giving her IV fluids and antibiotics and trying to see if she will eat. If all goes well, she should come home on Monday.
The doc says she must have been sick for a while, though according to dad she seemed quite ordinary until about Wednesday. I took her to the vet on Friday as she did look thin and scruffy and would not even sniff a can of Fancy Feast. She just curled up and looked like she planned to die. She made no fuss when dad put her in the cat cage and only gave 3 soft meows on the way to the vet's. I told them to watch out for her if she got to feeling better as she will try to bite a stranger.

Filibuster not possible

Few people know that on the stimulus bill a filibuster is not possible. Because of rules that require a 3/5 majority for a bill that would require this amount of deficit spending the passage of the bill requires a vote of 60 senators. So the vast amount of blogging about bringing on a filibuster is uninformed whistling in the wind. But few know about the arcane senate rules. I don't know why we are kept so misinformed. All the Speaker would have to say is that because of this rule we have to have a super majority of 60 votes. End of story. We are told 60 votes are needed, but not why. So the assumption is that it is the same old same old 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. No explanation because they think we are too stupid to understand? More information at Congress Matters.

$15,000 housing credit

Too bad it is too hard to multiply. The $15,000 tax credit (or 10% of the value whichever is lower) that has been added to the stimulus bill is purported to cost 19 billion. Wrong. Multiply 15 thousand by the expected 5 million houses that are expected to be sold anyway this year and you get 75 billion. Think about the additional houses that would be bought and sold just to get the credit and you might double this to 150 billion! Great way to reinflate the stupid housing bubble.

Exploding cell phones kill

Man killed in China just the latest to be killed by faulty counterfeit cell phone battery. The advise is not to carry a cell phone in a chest pocket. But would you be any safer with the phone in your pants pocket?

A good time was had by all

I forgot to take pictures on Super Bowl Sunday, so I got a few shots on Monday morning. Robbin is working hard on breakfast. William looks like he might have been telling a fish story?

Frank this is for you

MACAFRAMA Trailer from MACAFRAMA on Vimeo.
A whole movie about the joys of riding a single speed bike---although in San Francisco rather than Redding.

Cuba

As you can see in this preview of the Nature show about the wild animals of Cuba, whenever they show a street scene you see wonderful old US cars of the 50's and 60's. Cuba is a treasure trove of collectible cars.
I think a good thing for Obama to do this week would be to stop the embargo on Cuba. This would be a painless stimulus. Travelers would go to Cuba on US airlines who would rapidly put in flights. Travel agencies would arrange tours. Car collectors would buy cars. And auto makers would find a ready market for the US cars currently sitting unsold in the US. Then we would also export the technology to repair those cars, since the days are long gone when I would lift up the hood of a car and take the air filter apart and bang around on various parts with a hammer and the car would start again. This stroke of a pen could be worth a few billion in stimulus.

Saving money

USPS may end Saturday mail delivery for an annual savings of 2.5 billion. A little less than it lost last year.

Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup

You knew there was some reason you did not like the High Fructose Corn Syrup that is in everything. It's that nice little hint of metallic flavor, mercury. Plants across the nation still make the caustic soda and acid used to make the corn syrup in electrified vats of mercury. The FDA sat on this since 2005. I am shocked to tears, but in some ways not surprised. It is just the latest episode in the ongoing saga of Still Bushed.

Time to invest?

We know that money invested in the stock market grows about 6 times better under Democratic presidents----that's if you exclude Hoover. It's really worse if you include Hoover. 10k=11k if invested under only Republican presidents including Hoover. 10k invested under only Democratic presidents = 300K.
So now is the time to invest. But you still have to be careful. Bank stocks are a bad idea. A good idea is tech companies that do hospital/medical information systems. Also some of the companies that sell cheap stuff are still doing well, Walmart and McDonalds. Do Grocery Outlet and SaveMart sell stock? Home security companies may still do well, but companies that sell security to the government will do less well as the government edges away from privatization. Companies that specialize in green energy may do well, but since many will be jumping into this field some will do well and some will fail. New energy technologies are a good bet, if you can find the right ones.
Add health insurance companies as a bad investment. Probably drug companies as well.

Glinda vs Elphaba

State Department staffers have a Glinda party for the arrival of Hillary as Secretary of State. Condoleezza was referred to as the Wicked Witch of the West for using the State Department for self glorification.