Bella

Birgitta has gone to California to help Erik move back to Houston. Bella has come to visit us while she's gone. In other news, we got a letter from the homeowners association suggesting we might consider taking down the Christmas lights. It seems to me that if stores can start Christmas promos at Halloween, we should be able to have lights up until Easter.

Wear it with Pride: Bush Republicans

If you plan to watch at all Monday night (I don't) look for the pins.

Update on Sibel Edmonds Newsflash

Read the whole thing by clicking the link above. Here is the summary.

It appears as though certain administration officials have been illegally supplying the Turkish nuclear program for years, and now that they've been publicly outed, the Bush administration will simply make the entire program legal, just as they are trying to do with the illegal spying.

Congress has 90 days to amend or block this legislation, otherwise it automatically becomes law.

We need public open hearings to determine which officials have been supplying the nuclear black market before this becomes law.

Feel the stimulus!

So Dez and I and Jameson will get a $1500 tax rebate. I like it. And then the market will drop 20%, the value of our house will drop for the next two years, our insurance premiums will continue to sky rocket, gas will go to $4 a gallon, milk to $7, and the expected cost of Jameson's college tuition will jump 40% annually between now and when he starts college. And, uh, the rebates and business tax cuts will chop $150 billion in revenue from our government's budget. How many Americans do you think that would provide with total health care?

Sorry to be such a downer, but we've had a lot of rain around here lately. We need more garden blogging soon. Marc Tellepsen has been emailing plenty of good tips. I am ready to get outside and stop reading the news.

Oh yea, and democrats and republicans hold hands to assault the fourth amendment all day. (with a free Friday morning update) The terrorists will kill us or the troops or the bald eagles if the telecoms (and therefore Bush) aren't given retroactive immunity and allowed to read our emails without a warrant. Not that the FISA Court was all that great in the first place, but at least they were going through the motions. Thanks to Obama and Clinton for not even bothering to show up when a fundamental civil liberty is on the line.

How you may be affected by the Fed's rate-cut

The Fed hopes its cut will spur more spending, not saving, but it could hurt investors trying to earn interest.

Savers and investors with money parked in bank certificates of deposit, money market accounts and money market mutual funds could get pinched upon renewal as rates on those investments fall.

Investors with CDs maturing soon will have to choose between reinvesting in CDs with lower rates or another investment.

"Investors who have stayed in CDs took those teaser rates from banks are now going to be in a predicament," said Roberta Tucker, director of fixed income for Compass Bank Wealth Management Group.

Where is my escape hatch? About the only option available to me in my retirement account that seems somewhat safe is a money market mutual fund. We have Dez lined up with a money market account and bonds. Suggestions?

More reading: Why the Fed's rate cut won't work, by bonddad:

Total household debt outstanding went from about $8 trillion to a little under $14 trillion, or an increase of about 75%.

All of that debt has to go somewhere -- it doesn't exist in a financial netherworld. It has to become an asset to somebody. And it has -- in the form of a massive amount of securitizations which are currently being written down by literally every financial name in the business. So far we've seen about $100 billion or writedowns in the financial markets and we are going to see more. That's the central problem right now; it's not interest rates but the amount of crap on the books of various financial players (hell -- all the financial players).

In other words, the problem isn't the need too underwrite more consumer debt -- we are already choking on consumer debt. The problem is the system made too many loans that are now going bad. And the only way to wean us off of that problem (easy money) is to feel the pain so we don't do it again.

Newsflash (Sibel Edmonds)

The traditional U.S. media is a collection of self-interested businesses owned and staffed by crazed egomaniacs. It is not a "fourth branch" dedicated to serving the public interest.

Again, American reporters knew all of this in 2002. They knew that there were spies in the Pentagon and the State Department who were enabling the theft of military and intelligence secrets, and they knew that the Pentagon and the FBI were actively involved in covering it up.

For one reason or other - incompetence or complicity - not a single American journalist followed up on the important issues in the 60 Minutes report and the Washington Post, and we didn't learn about any of this in the US media in 2002. Instead, we are 'learning' it in 2008 from the British press - and still the US media refuses to publish it, which leads me to believe that the American media is not 'incompetent' but rather 'complicit.'

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft

Found in Translation: FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds spills her secrets.

Covering Up the Coverage: The American Media's Failure to Report on the Sibel Edmonds Case

Urban Harvest Fruit Tree Sale

Jameson gaurds the loot while I go get the pickup truck. We bought a cloud pomegranate, a pong koa mandarin, and a bundle of kiowa blackberries. It was chilly. We got to the sale a half an hour early, and there were about a hundred people ahead of us in line. Once they let us all in, it was complete chaos. They ran out of wagons about five people ahead of us. We got what we came for though.

Check out those great hats. Dez brings back a keeper from childhood.

Blackberries. They had to go in the ground right away because the roots were exposed. We got jipped. There were only nine stalks when there were supposed to be ten.

Here is a link to pruning and training trailing blackberry brambles after the first year of growth. I didn't have a chance to read up on how to plant them before I stuck them in the ground. It turns out that stalks should be 10 feet apart (instead of 8 inches), and rows should be 12 feet apart. Oops. I guess I will be replanting them soon. We have limited and sporadic space, so they'll be scattered around.

WGA Strike

Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake responds to the Forbes article on the strike.

Here is an argument that both parties agree that a deal not set precedent. (Isn't the point, for writers, to set a precedent?)

And, the directors make a deal. From the article:

The contract covering 13,400 members guarantees directors a $1,260 fixed residual payment for one-hour TV dramas streamed over the Internet in the first year, compared with $250 the studios had offered writers. The studios also would be entitled to a 24-day promotional window in the first year, and a 17-day window in the second year. After the first year, writers would receive 2% of the distributor's gross revenue.

When movies are sold online, directors will receive the current DVD royalty, 0.36% on the first 50,000 downloads, and 0.65% thereafter. Directors would get a 0.36% residual for the first 100,000 downloads of their TV episodes, and 0.7% after that.

. . .

The deal contains a so-called revisit clause that allows contract provisions to be adjusted after the three-year term.

Update: Huff Post follows up with some details about how far short the deal comes from what the WGA has been asking.

Garden Blogging IV

The beds are done. The path will have to wait a couple of days. Classes start tomorrow, and I have to work on syllabi. Hopefully Jameson can hang out with Mormor or Granddaddy on Wednesday, and I can finish it off then. Dez has been making her list of seeds for the past few days, and will start ordering them today. Green Zebra Tomatos and Chioggia Beets.

Retroactive Immunity

for telecoms now looks unlikely, thanks to Dodd.

Update: It turns out these predictions were premature. Reid seems more determined than ever to give Bush the FISA bill he wants, including immunity.

Garden Blogging III

Jennifer came over today and worked. She was a champ. She staked down the hollow blocks in the center bed with rebar, put on the 4" capstones, then filled it up with dirt. She deserved every bite of that peanut butter and jelly sandwich she had for lunch. Thanks Jen.



I leveled blocks most of the day. I think I may have messed up on one bed by leveling above the fabric rather than below. We'll know eventually.


After the beds are all full, I dig out a trench for the edging around the perimeter of the beds. I will have to do some leveling in places. Jameson's Hill needs to be dug up, at least most of it. After I stake down the edging, I'll fill in with decomposed granite and compact it. Then the garden will be ready.

Garden Blogging II

I had a slight delay due to rain and a lack of babysitting. Granddaddy and Mormor have been coming through, but are not available everyday. I got the beds marked off with stakes and mason's string. The next step is leveling. After the rain, water collected down in the corner close to the shed. After leveling, I lay the landscape fabric and put in the concrete blocks.


This hill, for as long as it shall exist (not long), shall be known as Jameson's Hill. He planted all of the surveying flags.

Garden Blogging I

I gave Dez a garden for Christmas. This is our "side" yard in back, and she'll have three beds running length-wise. Marc's partner, Mark, at Tellepsen Landscaping drew up a plan (for free: endless thanks) and I revised it based on a few logistics, like trees, sheds and AC units. Yesterday, I rented a sod cutter and wore myself out.

Some Responses to Iowa Caucus

Here are few interesting things I've read about the results of the Iowa Caucus.

"Worthless Chatter" Greenwald recalls the media's predictions that Huckabee would lose miserably in Iowa.

"The Real Deal" Digby discusses why Huckabee won.

Think Progress highlights the media making it out that McCain was the big winner. Atrios observes, obviously, he wasn't.

"Things Could Get Ugly" RenaRF discusses Obama's victory and the tendency of some liberals to reject candidates who appeal to independent voters.

"The corporate media blackout of John Edwards gets worse" since the Iowa Caucus, by JedReport.

Co-Chairs of 911 Commission on White House

"We call that obstruction."

The Golden Dukes

Thank you Josh Marshall. Happy New Year Everybody.