Extreme Sheepherding

I agree with Red State?

In the grand tradition of Grandpa Al who worked for Al Capone as a delivery truck driver.

Nice Weather in Texas

Sunny and mid 70's with a light breeze. Ben and I made what Val called a trailer park kite out of a plastic grocery bag, some floss and a ribbon we found. We had fun with it even if it did not fly too high, as the breeze was too soft.
Ben is really sleeping hard as I also walked him about a mile in a park. He ran out of energy on the way back and all I had to give him was lifesavers. He sat on a house step and then wondered at the dogs in the house barking at him. I said they were saying go away we do not know you.

Sylvia

We went to the theater tonight to see Sylvia. A very well produced comedy. We had seen it when it was produced here 8 years ago when the play was newly written.

Kate and Greg have a rock-solid marriage, until Greg brings home a girl he picked up in the park. The new girl is tough competition, even though she sheds, drools, chews shoes, sniffs crotches, and has fleas! This outrageous comedy about a dog and her man is one of our most popular shows ever!

Out to Tea

The Top Floor Tea Room went out of business in September, so I found a tea room in Grass Valley. Ugly location across from Kragen Auto Supply, but cute tea room and very nice food. William had a regular lunch of quiche and soup and I had a creme tea.

We discussed the fact that we actually had an afternoon tea in the fancy dining room at the old Roman baths in Bath England. But this was so early in our journey that while we enjoyed it and remember it, we did not fully appreciate the experience.

We will have to go back to The Cup of Tea and order the light afternoon tea sometime. As William says it is a lot of food and would require having only coffee and a banana for breakfast and soup for dinner.

William enjoyed his southwest quiche with salsa and sour cream and his mushroom soup. My creme tea included 2 delicious scones with cream, lemon curd, a lovely strawberry jam and a pot of tea.
The Cup Of Tea tea room in Grass Valley
Picture us at the table for two under the window.
The Pump House in Bath September 2007.

Why did Iceland go bankrupt?

An excellent and funny article in Vanity Fair explains it all.
Although there will soon be no need for a Central Bank in Iceland as the country will convert to the euro,

inside the place stews David Oddsson, the architect of Iceland’s rise and fall. Back in the 1980s, Oddsson had fallen under the spell of Milton Friedman, the brilliant economist who was able to persuade even those who spent their lives working for the government that government was a waste of life. So Oddsson went on a quest to give Icelandic people their freedom—by which he meant freedom from government controls of any sort. As prime minister he lowered taxes, privatized industry, freed up trade, and, finally, in 2002, privatized the banks. At length, weary of prime-ministering, he got himself appointed governor of the Central Bank—even though he was a poet without banking experience.

A hedge fund manager explained Icelandic banking

this way: You have a dog, and I have a cat. We agree that they are each worth a billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners, but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets. “They created fake capital by trading assets amongst themselves at inflated values,” says a London hedge-fund manager. “This was how the banks and investment companies grew and grew. But they were lightweights in the international markets.”

William tells me that Belgian banks are so over leveraged that Belgium will soon follow Iceland. What will be the consequences for Belgium?

Boulder Beer

Found this at Grocery Outlet and could not resist bringing it home.

Nightmares for me tonight

Dad rented "No Country for Old Men". Good movie but too violent and gruesome for me.

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.