And she says she's not an Angel...

A dear and precious friend in Oregon e-mailed me that she had made and packed some cinnamon bread for me but was not able to ship it because of the ice and snow. The household was going to open them and have a party but they heard that an elderly lady down the street was alone and snowed in so they carried the bread and a pot of hot stew down to her house and they shoveled the snow off her stairs and had hot chocolate with her. This is no surprise to anyone who knows these folks.

I wrote to her that I had never gotten so much joy from a loaf of bread before. This would be the very essence of Christmas Spirit except this is typical of these people all year round! May you all find joy, comfort, and contentment this Christmas Season. I find I have so much to be thankful for in my friends and associates. Thank you all.

Thank you, Paul Weyrich.

Paul Weyrich has passed away. The world is diminished by his absence. I first saw him on TV about 14 years ago. He had a program on his satellite station, NET Network. I greatly admire his integrity and his character. When I started to feel cynical, or despaired the lack of honor and honesty in politics it was the thought that he was active and respected in politics that helped keep me from giving up on the country. I did not share his religious beliefs but I greatly respected his uncompromising devotion to his faith. He was a credit to his church and a blessing to this country. I wish I knew of another of his caliber.

Thank you, Sir, for all that you have done for America and all that you have unknowingly given to me. You have inspired me with your character and wisdom and set a standard I have and will strive to honor, though I can never match it. May you find peace and rest.

Aftermath

Well, it's over. I find myself rather bummed about the results and what it says about the American people, but I don't think we will see marshal law and Brownshirts in the streets any time soon. We have just kicked out the firemen and turned over full control to the arsonists who set fire to our economy and looted our treasury, with instructions to "fix" it and full access to our bank account and credit. WEEEEE!!!

The Democrats have controlled the legislature for two years. They now have bigger majorities in the house and senate as well as the Whitehouse. How long will they be able to blame their failures and the consequences of their actions on the Republicans and George Bush? Maybe this is what Nancy meant when she said that increasing the house majority for Democrats would make it more bipartisan, they would take the pork and the Republicans would take the heat?

My biggest concerns are:

--The threat to energy development by the bans I expect on drilling and exploitation of oil shale.

--The damage to the economy of regulation and higher taxes along with higher energy costs.

--The threat of federal laws against firearms and ammunition, through bans, regulations, or taxes, and the higher crime rates that will bring. It could roll back the progress we have made against crime as 40 states passed "right to carry" laws and saw their crime rates drop. It also disarms citizens at a time when the words and intention of the second amendment ring quite loudly.

--The threat from terrorist forces when the military is forced to stop fighting them overseas and they return to our shores with a renewed sense of immunity.

In one sense I am lucky as I don't expect any surprises or buyers remorse. Although Obama is a shameless liar he has been rather open about that. He has lied openly and publicly so no one can say they were deceived except by their own desire to be deceived. If you ignore what he said he has been rather consistent about his intentions and beliefs. The people who think Obama will pay for their gas and mortgage may be in for a rude awakening and that tax rebate will not seem so cool if it comes with a pink slip. I wonder how many working class Democrats are going to find themselves like autoworkers, with high pay but no job? As for me, any surprises will be good ones.

I suppose the biggest question will be if Obama has the sense to go slow enough not to scare the horses. If his arrogance leads him to move too fast, he may find himself saddled with a Republican congress and senate, as Clinton did. We shall just have to see what happens. I didn't think there was much chance for this election, though I didn't expect this bad a result. The energy and excitement that Sarah brought to the campaign gave me some hope. Now I'm just bummed.

I want to crawl off and hide.

The Stakes are High.

I have been buried in financial opinion and analysis and of course the opinions vary widely. I am not an economist and this is not a subject I enjoy looking into, but the stakes are high and we are being rushed to give a huge blank check and unaccountable power to the very people who's reckless tampering with the markets got us here. They have lost the benefit of a doubt in my eyes. It should not surprise anyone that when you dump huge amounts of easy credit into a limited market, the value of those dollars goes down, causing the price of those houses to go up in the inflated dollars. If you then dump yet more dollars into the market, backed by those inflated property values, you are building a bubble. If you or I ran such a ponzi scheme we would be prosecuted. Only our congress would see it as a reason to open our wallets to them when it collapsed.

We are being told that we "Must do something!", and I agree we should, as we have brought this about, but we should be careful that we don't make the problem worse or longer lasting by what we do. I do not think we should try to save the mortgages of people who should never have been given loans in the first place and I don't want to shift the costs from the bankers to the tax payers. If the government buys these loans it would seem they will be dumping them, further depressing a market already flooded with under priced homes. Also, with so much money moving around and so little transparency I absolutely do not trust these bozos not to skim off huge amounts for their favorite groups. Having taken over the housing market and the banking system, what industry is next? When the market tampering makes the problem worse rather than better, will they admit their error and undo it or will they say they need yet more control? I was trying to make a living in Nixon's wage and price controls and Carter's economy. No thanks! Not again! They will say what supporters of socialism always say, "It just wasn't done right" and "We need to go farther". Bull!

What to do?

Suspend or modify "mark-to-market" accounting for now. I don't know if it's for the best long term but it is causing problems in this situation. I think we need something similar long term.

Loosen up credit by lending to banks rather than buying bad assets. If banks have been imprudent them let them end up in other hands but don't let the lockup take down the healthy banks. Make it clear there will NOT be a buyout!

Ease concerns about mortgage backed securities by issuing insurance, which the holders will pay for, not the tax payers.

If people were hurt by recent purchases of homes at the inflated prices WE caused I wouldn't mind seeing a limited program to help share their loses, but strict oversight and control is needed. See the next point.

Put proper adults watching over these programs and dismantle them! Congress has shown it is not honest enough for this task. They can not have the power to interfere with the regulators. It should be obvious that the people charged with oversight CAN NOT TAKE MONEY from the people they are watching. Unfortunately this was not so obvious to our legislators.

Part of the problem here is that the economy was already staggering from high energy costs. We should immediately start developing and expanding the different energy and refining resources we have, not just removing the legal blocks but passing emergency enabling legislation that will keep the usual players from blocking these projects in court or in the regulatory agencies. The regulators need to do their jobs to protect us but these programs need to be exempted from the more onerous provisions that can be used to tie them up for years. The oil, coal, shale oil, and gas we have can supply the time and the prosperity we need to develop long term practical alternative energy sources. We need new refineries so we don't take a hit every time a storm blows through the gulf or something causes one to shut down for a while. We have not built a new refinery since the 1970s and we have no effective reserve capacity. Ending our oil imports alone could save more in a couple of years than the staggering amount they want to grab for the bailout. All that money pouring into our own economy would greatly help the recovery.

Given the hit our economy has taken from high energy prices and this market meddling we can not afford to hit it with higher taxes now. The tax cuts should be made permanent and expanded. Capitol gains tax should be greatly cut to encourage investment, and corporate taxes, which are among the highest in the world, should be reduced or eliminated. We have seen several times in my lifetime how powerful and robust our economy is when we let it operate properly. This would seem to be a good time!

This is my much oversimplified, under qualified opinion on this mess. The good news is that I am not part of the system making these decisions. The bad news is that we will all have to live with the consequences. This will not be fun.

On the other hand...

They could surprise me.



Ya, right!

The bailout.

The biggest issue at the moment seems to be the bailout. I don't think we can do nothing, but I am loathe to leave it in the hands of those who created the problem and now tell us we must give them open access to our financial markets and our wallets so that they can fix it. Anyone who voted to give Democrats control of congress and the senate or who sat aside and let the Democrats take control and lock out the adults have little to complain about. Of course the children had a kegger party and went wild. Nothing the Democrats did to the markets should be a surprise to anyone who has been watching them for the last thirty years. The warning was sounded several times but the Republicans had to be taught a lesson. While I agree there was reason to punish, this was like punishing them for getting drunk by making them drive home, with us in the back seat. Now something must be done and the people we must look to are the ones who got us here and have proven they can not be trusted to put our interests ahead of politics, even in a crisis. Not looking good. I have read what I can of the proposals and while I feel better about this than I did about the original piece of garbage I just don't know if it's good enough. The adults just have very little leverage.

The site I have the most respect for on these matters is Powerline. This is their take so far.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/09/021634.php

I am not happy just now. I feel like I'm on the operating table for difficult surgery and the Doctors are half gassed and playing grabass as they cut inside me.

For Laurie!.An expert!

Laurie, at Homekeeping Heart is as sweet as the chocolate cakes she makes, and I hear she is really proficient at chicken dancing. I recommend her blog.

New Neighbors!

I have rarely interacted with anyone online except the community at Teh Squeaky Wheel and the personal blogs of the folks there. As all of them are on the side bar there I never listed any other sites but the Wheel here. I recently "met" some fascinating people at some other blogs and I am having a great time reading their blogs and wandering around to see the sites of their visitors. I have listed a few blogs on the side that I have really enjoyed visiting. I am so glad I found them and I am very grateful for their gracious hospitality and their patience. Thank you!

Energy. I wish!

As I get older and softer I find energy takes on a different meaning, but that's not what I have in mind here. I have recently found some interesting blogs with some interesting comments. I dropped in a comment on a post dealing with energy, among other things and another blogger left a thoughtful and interesting response. I responded to that but as this has also come up on Teh Squeaky Wheel and some other blogs by people on that forum, I thought I might put down some thoughts here. I tend to get long winded, as my patient friends know all too well, so I will try to get that out of my system here. Energy is the key to modern industrial civilization. The production, distribution, and use of energy is what fuels our economy today and without abundant, inexpensive energy we can not support the quality of life we have come to expect. For most of a century, coal powered western industrial society. It powered industry, transportation, and the military. It was cheap and abundant, well suited to powering mass transport such as trains and ships, powering industrial furnaces, and powering stationary steam engines as industrial prime movers or to generate electricity. It was relatively low tech in it's production, distribution and preparation. Dig it up, break it up, and throw it on the fire. It could even be used for home heating and it could be processed to produce lamp gas or coal tar.

Around a hundred years ago, oil began to supplant coal. It required more elaborate infrastructure to mine, refine, store, transport, and distribute, but it's refined products had much higher energy content and could be used in more sophisticated ways, allowing the introduction of the various types of internal combustion engines. This made possible individual self contained transport, machines, tools, and generators. This also made flight possible. Coal was not abandoned and the oil infrastructure developed. The oil infrastructure was built as technological progress and need made it practical. Coal fueled and powered this transition and is still in use today in those applications where it remains practical.

For most of the last century, oil was the key to industrial, economic, and military power. In the last half of the century only one viable rival has been developed. This is nuclear fission. Ironically it is strong in the same areas that coal was strong, ships and stationary power plants for generating electricity using steam engines. It does not have coal's advantage of low tech production and use. It does have good potential to generate electricity cleanly, safely, and economically. In our navy and in much of the modern world, hundreds of reactors are serving in this way every day and have been for decades. Oil is still needed for it's energy density and it's versatility for portable power production, plus nuclear fission uses scarce material and produces dangerous, long lasting waste that is hard to secure, store, and dispose of. The time for a better answer is approaching.

At this point the only technologies that have shown the potential for replacing oil as our prime energy source are geothermal and nuclear fusion. Both are virtually unlimited and almost non polluting. Unfortunately, neither is ready yet. Other energy producers such as solar, biofuel, wind turbines, and tidal are simply not practical as more than supplements to the others. None are ready to assume a significant share of the energy needs of our society in the near future. To give our industry and science time and resources to develop and produce the energy sources for the mid and long term needs of our society we must look to the resources we have now. This means nuclear fission, coal, and oil. We can not stop the exploration and exploitation of these resources without a collapse of our economy, our society, and our ability to defend ourselves and our interests in this very competitive world.

That's my outlook on energy today, for what it's worth. I'll go into more detail on specific areas or in response to comments if any. The sun is coming up so I hope I am coherent. Thanks.

Time to touch on politics I suppose.

I was a little dismayed at an attitude I heard expressed today that both sides just had to expect to be smeared because they have to be tough enough to take it. I didn't hear this from the Democrats when Hillary cried on the campaign trail, and I can't recall any smears against their families except by other Democrats, like the New Yorker cover.

The justifications I've heard recently for targeting Sarah Palin's family are,

1)--She should have known they would be targeted and stayed at home.
-This was best shown by Mark Shields, a nationally famous commentator and pundit, who questioned rather she should have accepted the nomination knowing her daughter was pregnant. In other words, What kind of mother is she, running for office when she knows that we in the media are going to slime her family?

2)--Because she brought her family on stage during the convention they became "fair game".
- I really read this from a person on a lefty site in response to criticism about attacking kids with lies.

3)--(today) She's tough and can take it. They both are tough and can take it.
-Reagan was tough enough that he was chopping wood a couple of weeks after being shot but that does not excuse or mitigate the offense in any way! If the attacks went both ways we could just deplore the passing or eclipse of civil discourse, but can anyone point out even ONE comment any Republican has made about Obama's children? They have been mentioned and displayed several times. They were used at the convention. Has any Republican called them or considered them "fair game"?? I do not even know their names. Would it be proper for Republicans to make up lies questioning their character, legitimacy, or chastity because Obama is tough enough to take it?


This is not new. Has any Democrat judicial or cabinet nominee EVER been subjected to the personal and racist smears that Thomas, Brown, Rice, Powell, Alito, Bork,or Roberts were?

One name? One finger? No? Then I go on.

Few people are taught that in our American Revolution there were as many or more Tories as Revolutionaries (excuse me, Patriots!). This is because Tory papers were often burnt and their editors tarred and feathered or "deported" on a fence rail. The winners in a civil war write the history books. In this case it would be nice if the Democrats were brought to shame afterwards for this iniquitous behavior but we have seen that the press will not reveal their shameful conduct because the press has been too complicit in the activities and too biased in reporting it. This means that win or lose the Democrats are rewarded for this terrible behavior as even if they alienate the moderate voters and lose they will not receive long term blame ("every body did it") and they will make it harder for principled candidates, the ones we should want and they most fear, to enter the race in future.

If I have been deceived by my own prejudices I stand open to correction but I can't think of an exception by any credible Republican and the blatant and one sided nature of the smears, even while the Democrats decry the "McCain smear machine" and the "Rove smear tactics" makes it hard for me to see the good will on the part of the candidate and his campaign. If indeed there are many Democrats that do not approve of the tactics of their nominee they must face the fact that by standing silent and giving him their vote and money they are approving of and encouraging these methods. They can not wash their hands of this while supporting the ones who do it.

Condemn it and stop it or own it.

Peace.

I heard that my friend's daughter passed away tonight. Even as her body faded away last year she thought of her family. Where does a child so young find such courage and compassion? Is it all faith? I think such strength of character comes from the love, compassion and character she knew growing up. Her mother has taken such wonderful care of her for so long while keeping her family together and focused on the future. I look at this mother's strength and my own and I come up wanting. When my weaknesses tempt me how can I give in, remembering her devotion to her family?

I hope this family can come together and heal their hearts and souls. I am sure they will as they are bound in love and steadfast in their faith. I am grateful she did not know the pain so many victims must deal with. I shall always be grateful to them for this glimpse of what a family can be.

Bless you all my dear friends. Rest in blessed peace dear child. You live on in the hearts of those who knew you and loved you, and they are legion.

It is warm here but I am cold.

Nova.

A sweet and beautiful star will very soon drop from the sky. She had only seventeen short years to grow and shine, but I feel the world I live in diminished by her passing. In spite of that I feel all people of virtue and goodness are blessed she was here, for like a nova she burned very bright in her short time and bathed all around her in her light and love. As that warmth disperses it makes this world a better place, even for those who never knew this lovely child.

She grew up in a home rich not in material goods but awash in love, faith, and virtue. More than just reflecting this goodness she burned with all these qualities and reached out far beyond her family to touch other lives.

Dear child, I have loved you like a daughter, more than any flesh and blood of my own. Thank you for blessing my life with your shining example of sublime goodness, and please find peace and relief.

Personal note.

Someone precious to me has untreatable brain cancer. I would rather have this myself than see this Angel stricken so. Her mother sent this to me, saying it touched her. She quit her job to care for her daughter full time as she fades, so I understand. I am so grateful for the powerful faith that sustains these people. How do you thank someone for such inspiration and such an example?

First inspection. We close on Friday.

The guy in charge! He has made this happen for us. I could not be happier with him.



The front.


Us.

The Kitchen

The wood frame above the cabinate over the stove will be sheetrocked in to hide the exhaust vent pipe. There will be space on either side. For plants. Oh joy.








Oops! Poor planning on the designer's part. I think it will be OK with a travel stop on the drawer.

Inside, getting close.

Most things are installed. There is electricity and the gas should be in this week. There are still a few lights to install, some detailing, and the final paint.





The utility room


The garage





The master bath

Outside. Landscaping!

Except for the gutters and some repair work the outside is about done. The grass is brown and dormant. Bermuda grass seems to be standard here. In California we pulled it as weeds. It does survive the freeze.

More pictures of concrete achievement.

The front.




They also hung the doors....


And trimmed in under the covered porches.

Concrete finished.

The back of the house. Eight feet wide.




I got distracted (Look! Shiny!)and forgot to take pictures of the front. Tomorrow Elena will do that. There were trucks and workmen there. They are hanging doors inside.

Concrete progress!!

These were from early today. They said they would be done today. Elena and I will go and look tomorrow. Should make for good pictures.


East side.



Back of house. 8' wide.


West side, from the back.


From the West. Goes around gas meter.