Growing Pains

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but this year, I decided to try a new approach to my garden. Being tired of setting up an all-you-can-eat salad bar for the local animals, I planted herbs in pots on the deck, along with two pots of tomatoes and two pots of bell peppers (one red, one green). I also cleared a patch at the side of the house and planted the seeds I saved from the single acorn squash I managed to grow last year. Here's how it all turned out:

Basil - growing like crazy, and we've been harvesting regularly for salads, sauces, etc. It smells wonderful.

Dill - plants grew very tall and gave us enough dill for what we use (mostly sauces). Kind of ugly, though.

Mint - Grew well, but we don't use that much of it, so I probably won't grow it again next year. I may just transplant the plants out at the edge of the woods behind the house and let them go wild.

Thyme - growing very well, and smells wonderful.

Parsley - growing very well. Because it's a biennial herb, it'll come back next year, too.

Chives - growing very well.

Rosemary - I put in two plants at the side of the house, next to our acorn squash. The plants are growing, but I just can't get them to turn into one of those big, beautiful rosemary bushes I really want.

Tomatoes - a total loss. The plants grew big and strong and produced lots of tomatoes, but they all rotted on the vine. I wonder if I overwatered, or overdid it with the solution of Epsom salts and water that I sprayed them with. I think I'll just skip the tomatoes next year.

Green and Red Bell Peppers - the plants grew pretty well, and we may get one of each color pepper. Several others rotted and fell off the vines before they had a chance to ripen.

Acorn Squash - this was our success story - the plants grew up very big and strong from the seeds, and right now I have at least four squash about the size of billiard balls, with a lot more developing. With any luck, we'll have quite a crop. The deer munched away at some of the plants on the edges of the plot, but left enough that we should get some good squash dinners this winter*.

Bottom Line: Next year, I'm going to do the herbs again in pots on the deck. No tomatoes. No bell peppers, but I think I'll try to plant jalapenos. If the squash turns out, I'll save the seeds and plant it again. I'm thinking I may try to build a garden enclosure like this one I spotted on Facebook ...

Farmer Bilbo will get a decent crop yet. If the deer and the rabbits don't get it first.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Want my recipe for Sausage-Stuffed Molasses-Glazed Acorn Squash? E-mail me and I'll send it to you.

French Customs Officials - 1, Bilbo - 0

In the last two days, I've told you two stories about my misadventures in France. Today, we'll look at the third and last of my experiences in the land of wine and cheese ... my encounter with French customs agents.

When we lived in Wiesbaden, Germany, we often made weekend trips down into the beautiful French Alsace region*. We would pick a small town with a nice hotel and restaurant, drive down, and spend the weekend dining and sightseeing. This usually worked out quite well, as most hoteliers and restauranteurs in the Alsace tended to speak at least a little German, which compensated for my total lack of French.

On the weekend in question, we picked up our friends Horst and Martina (whom you will remember from the previous posts) and drove down to a little town near the city of Bitche**, where we checked into a delightful country inn with attached restaurant. After lunch, we went to a crystal factory that Agnes wanted to visit, where we purchased several beautiful crystal decanters at - relatively speaking - very good prices. We then went on to do some sightseeing before returning to the hotel to enjoy a wonderful, multi-course gourmet dinner that lasted about four hours, after which we were returned to our rooms in wheelbarrows.

The next day we did some more sightseeing and, after lunch, prepared to head home. This is where the adventure began...

If you have traveled in Europe, you know that most countries impose a very hefty (17% or more) "value added tax" (or VAT) on almost everything you buy. But if you're a tourist, and you get the right itemized receipts and customs paperwork, you can get the tax refunded when you leave the country. This being not chump change if you've bought a lot of stuff, most knowledgeable travelers go through the administrative hassle of applying for the tax refund ... which is exactly what we intended to do with the crystal we bought.

At the factory, we obtained the properly formatted receipts, clearly showing the amount of the VAT eligible to be refunded. We were instructed to submit these at the French customs office before we crossed the border back into Germany, where we would obtain the forms which, once decorated with the appropriate number of stamps and signatures, would allow us to get the tax money back. Easy peasey lemon squeezey, as my granddaughter Leya would say.

Not so fast there, bucko ...

The first hitch in the plan came when we suddenly realized that it was Sunday ... and in true French fashion, most border crossing stations were not manned. We drove for quite a while and many miles, searching for a border post that actually had people working in it. Finally, just outside the town of Wissembourg, we found a manned customs office - hooray!!

I was appointed*** to take our receipts to the office and get the paperwork done, and so I put on my very best good-natured-tourist face and approached the two very bored-looking Inspector Clouseau clones sitting behind the counter.

"Bon jour!" I said cheerfully, instantly exhausting my French vocabulary. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?", I went on hopefully.

Both men looked at me suspiciously.

"Do you speak English?"

More blank looks through narrowed eyes.

At this point, I figured speech was pretty much useless, so I just laid all the receipts (thankfully, written in French) on the counter and pointed to the line indicating the amount of tax to be refunded.

One of the customs officers sighed and slowly picked up the receipts, which he proceeded to examine minutely. Finishing his examination, he handed the receipts to the second officer, who also slowly and carefully studied them, occasionally looking up at me with a baleful eye.

Eventually, he handed the receipts back to the first officer, who - with great and theatrical effort - rose from his chair and lumbered across the room to a battered five-drawer file cabinet, where he slowly and methodically searched through several drawers before finding the sheaf of forms he wanted. He then slowly lumbered back to his chair, sat down with a grunt, laid the forms on the counter, then spent a few minutes searching for a pen that would write, testing half a dozen or so on a pad of scratch paper before finding one that would produce a suitably firm and official line.

The officer then went through a pantomime act which I finally understood to be a request for my passport, which I duly handed over. He studied it carefully, comparing my picture to my face and my printed information to the data already entered on the purchase receipts at the store. Finally satisfied that I was really Bilbo, that the receipts were not forgeries, and that I really had bought the things listed thereon, he proceeded to copy - very slowly and carefully - all the information from my passport and the receipts into the proper places on his new form.

While this was going on, the second officer indicated that he wanted me to take him to the car so that he could inspect the items we'd bought ... which, of course, were underneath all our suitcases in the trunk. As we walked from the office back to the van, Agnes, Martina, and Horst glared impatiently at me as if to say, would you get a move on with this, already? I dutifully located all the crystal items we'd bought, and we carried them back to the office, where Clouseau 2 compared them to the receipts, and the receipts to the data laboriously entered onto the other forms by his colleague.

Finally the forms had been properly filled out and compared to our purchases. We were almost done ... all he now needed was the official stamp.

Which he couldn't find.

After a ten-minute search Clouseau 1 finally located the official stamp, after which a new search was initiated to find an ink pad. The pad was finally found, but - naturally - was dried out and had to be re-inked. The ink had to be found. After the bottle of ink had been found and the pad re-inked, a large number of test stamps had to be made on a scratch pad in order to make sure that just the right amount of official ink was applied to the official form.

Finally - after nearly a full hour - I left the customs office with our crystal, receipts, and the hard-won official form that would authorize us to get the tax money refunded. I was accompanied back to the car by the Clouseau brothers, who watched carefully as I repacked our purchases and kept a close eye on us as we pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the border.

Looking back on that adventure, I suppose I can't fault a couple of bored officials at a backwater border crossing for yielding to the urge to jerk around a hapless American tourist. The beautiful Baccarat crystal decanter set so thoroughly documented at the border still holds pride of place on our living room shelves.

And the next time, I'll let Agnes deal with the Clouseau brothers.

Have a good day. Avoid the border crossing at Wissembourg if you can ... the Clouseau brothers have probably long since retired, but I'm sure they have relatives still there.

See you tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

* Or German Elsass region, depending on who owns it at the time.

** Yes, really.

*** I didn't get a vote.

Ikea Is the Swedish Word for "Hernia"

Before we get to the good stuff, I noticed on my Blogger dashboard that today marks my 1900th post! While 1900 is a nice, round number, though, all it really means is that the actual celebrateable (?) milestone is just 100 posts away ... if I keep up my usual schedule, probably sometime in late March or early April. I'm thinking about something appropriate for my 2000th post ... if you have any suggestions for topics (that won't land me in jail, Mike), put them into a comment or e-mail me.

And now for the main event...

Yesterday I engaged in another of my cherished annual traditions. We borrowed our son-in-law's truck and used it to haul all of our Christmas decorations back from the storage unit ...

After unloading the decorations at home, I loaded up the truck with junk and trash and drove it to the landfill in Lorton. Quite the swinging weekend, eh?

But there's more!

On the way home from our daughter's house after picking up the truck, we also stopped at the local Ikea store to pick up a few new pieces of furniture we'd been intending to buy. For those of you not familiar with Ikea, here are a few notes to help you understand the concept:

1. The average Ikea store is so big that it has its own zip code. Some Ikea stores are so big they require customers to have a passport and visa to enter.

2. An Ikea store is cleverly laid out so that it takes you a minimum of three days to get from the entrance to the checkout. The marked route through the store ensures that you will have the opportunity to see and admire every single item they sell, regardless of what you went there to buy in the first place.

3. All Ikea products have names. You don't just buy a bookshelf or a coffee table, you buy a Billy bookshelf or a Vejmon coffee table. I think this is silly. I don't need to be on a first-name basis with my furniture.

4. Everything you buy at Ikea comes unassembled, requiring you to haul it home and put it together yourself.

4a. The average disassembled item comes packed into a box carefully designed to be too large to fit into the trunk of any car not made to haul supplies for the Army.

4b. That box weighs a minimum of four tons and requires a Bucyrus Erie crane to get it off the shelf and onto your cart.

Good luck getting it from the cart to the bed of your pickup truck, and into your house once you get home.

4c. Any Ikea product of any size consists of at least 75 pieces made of solid lead covered with an attractive wood veneer. These pieces are assembled using thousands of screws, nails, grommets, flanges, and other assorted oddly-shaped connectors, all carefully counted out and packaged in convenient plastic bags which strew parts in all directions when opened.

4d. The assembly instructions for an Ikea product have no words ... they consist of drawings which guide you step-by-step through the assembly process. The assembly instructions for the Galant Drawer Unit on Casters (with birch veneer) is 28 pages long, and includes a separate booklet that explains how to set the combination lock. Here is a typical page:

Good luck, and bring that magnifying glass with you.

4e. No Ikea product can be assembled in the space available where you want to install it. This means you must assemble it someplace which provides enough space for you to spread out all the parts and maneuver them around ... a soccer field, for instance ... and then transport it in its fully-assembled form to the room where you actually want to use it. Sadly, that Bucyrus Erie crane probably won't be of much help by this point.

4f. Once you have completed the assembly and installation of your Ikea product, you will notice several things:

4f(1) It looks beautiful.

4f(2) You will need to dispose of an enormous amount of packing material.

4f(3) You will require the services of a psychiatrist and a chiropractor.

Yesterday, I assembled and installed two large Billy bookcases (one each for my study and Agnes's study), the aforementioned Galant drawer unit for Agnes's study, and a Vejmon Coffee Table for the living room. They all look very nice, but my eyes hurt from squinting at instructions and I feel like someone has been beating me with a two-by-four.

So ...

If you like modernistic, spiffy furniture you can address by name and have boundless patience, a Bucyrus Erie crane, and a 55-gallon drum of Bengay ointment, Ikea is the place to shop. Good luck.

Just don't call me to help you.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Deep in the Heart of Taxes

At the risk of triggering howling mobs of Grover Norquist-inspired anti-tax zealots waving torches, pitchforks, and signed copies of their "taxpayer protection pledge," let's discuss taxes.

I have written often enough here about the subject of taxes and tax policies. You can go back and read the last one here, and if you do you will be able to see where I'm beating the same drum and plagiarizing myself today. You can sue me. Here are my latest comments ...

Let’s go back for a moment and review Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which says:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States…”

That seems pretty clear to me: Congress can spend money, and impose taxes to get the money to spend. We talked last Friday about how difficult it is to cut spending. Today, let’s talk about the related problem of raising revenue (a word which sounds less ugly than taxes).

Here's the bottom line: governments need money to operate. They can raise that money in one of three ways:

1. Collect taxes (generally, the major source of government operating revenue);

2. Charge fees for government services (such as the money you pay to get a passport issued, or the stamps you buy to get your mail delivered); or,

3. Borrow against the credit of the nation (politicians like this, because it's painless ... taxpayers don't see it until it's too late).

There's a fourth option, too, which is simply to print more money, but economists (to the extent they can agree on anything at all) tend to agree that this is a bad move.

Yes, Dear Readers, taxes represent the major source of revenue that any government needs to operate. Not to put too fine a point on it, the power of a government to levy taxes, and the willingness of the population to pay them, are critical to the functioning of a nation. Problems arise when:

1. The government uses the power to tax for purposes other than generation of operating revenue … for instance, for social engineering (that is, programs or incentives intended for the benefit of a specific ethnic or religious group), or currying favor with specific business or special interest groups;

2. The population perceives that the power to tax is being used improperly (for example, to benefit – or punish – specific individuals or groups) or is being levied unfairly (for example, for the benefit of the politically well-connected or a socio-economic elite); or,

3. The government fails to communicate to the taxpayers why a given level of taxation is necessary, and does not justify this to the population. The power to levy taxes doesn’t mean much if those who are taxed don't understand why the taxes are necessary and what their stake in paying them is, giving them an incentive to avoid payment.

What should the characteristics of an ideal tax system be? Nobody will ever agree on this one, but I would suggest the following:

1. It should bring in sufficient revenue (when combined with borrowing and fees for services) to operate the government, pay its debts, and provide a reasonable cushion for unforeseen emergencies;

2. It should be fair (that is, no one segment of the taxpaying population should bear a larger burden than any other). This, of course, leads to much debate over what constitutes fairness, but we’ll get to that in a minute;

3. It should be transparent and understandable to the average taxpayer (that is, the average taxpayer should be able to calculate what he or she owes based on a set of simple instructions); and,

4. It should not be used for any purpose other than the raising of revenue to operate the government … not as a tool for social engineering, a source of political patronage or reward, or anything else.

Let’s talk about fairness as it applies to taxes. What makes a system of taxation fair? Reasonable people (if you can find any nowadays) can disagree on this, but I suggest these as yardsticks of fairness:

1. Tax rates should be as low as possible consistent with the needs of the government;

2. Every individual, regardless of their amount of income level above a minimum subsistence level, should be required to pay, and every business should be liable for a tax on its profits;

3. Taxes should not be negative; that is, no taxpayer should receive refunds or payouts in excess of taxes actually paid; and,

4. The tax rate should be progressive; that is, not based on a flat percentage of income. I believe this is reasonable, because (for instance) a rate of 10% on a taxable income of $1000 will hurt that individual much more than the same rate applied to a taxable income of $1,000,000. Yes, I know this is heresy, but I think it's simple common sense.

Looking at all of the above, it comes as no surprise that the American system of taxation is hopelessly and utterly unfair, inadequate, and useless. There would probably be no need for the tax increases that so enrage Republicans if the entire system were trashed and rebuilt from the ground up. I contend, as do people smarter than I in the arcane mysteries of economics, that if all deductions and special incentives were eliminated, tax rates could probably be dramatically reduced and still bring in far more revenue.

This is unlikely to happen, though, because I predict that the extreme Republican right will maintain that elimination of deductions and incentives will equate to a net increase in the tax burden of those who are lose those deductions and incentives. And, of course, no one will want to give up their prized and cherished tax advantages, even if the net result is that their taxes will be smaller in the long run. Because - and here's the ugly truth - Americans no longer trust their government and their elected representatives to do the right thing ... or, at least, the right thing as they define it through the prism of their ideologies.

Yes, it’s probably true that tax rates can be reduced, but only if two things happen: spending is reduced to align with income; and deductions and incentives are done away with so that a larger pool of money is subject to a smaller tax.

Good luck with all that. I’ve given up on anyone in a position of power and authority doing any serious and dispassionate thinking about this issue.

What do you think about taxes and tax reform? Remember, before you answer, that there are children who read this blog.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Unkindest Cuts of All

Yesterday on Facebook I was taken out to the intellectual woodshed for a wire-brushing by my friend Bob, who took me to task over his contention that I was “casting blame [at our political classes] very one-dimensionally.” He accused me of “…devolving into dogmatism …,” noting that, “All your spears seem to be reserved for the Republicans and you have no criticism for the other side…”

Yes, I tend to be hard on Republicans because I'm basically conservative, and I expect better behavior and clear, rational discussion of serious issues from people that are supposed to be thoughtfully and seriously conservative. Unfortunately, there appear to be no rational, thoughtful Republicans left … only a bunch of unyielding, unthinking demagogues led around by the nose by Grover Norquist and the Tea Party, reduced to shouting slogans and petulantly refusing to compromise on any issue.

All that said, in one regard I agree 100% with the Republicans (incredible as that may seem): government spending – in relation to income – is out of control. Both parties are at fault, even though Republicans insist it's all the fault of the big-spending Democrats (it's worth remembering that the Republicans are the party of a president that fought two wars on credit while cutting the taxes that might have helped pay for them). Democrats, on the other hand, believe there’s nothing wrong with spending money we don't have on social programs that are often of questionable value. Every member of Congress tries to bolster his or her chances of reelection by steering government spending for the benefit of the home district, or to curry favor with particular unions, ethnic groups, special interests, or whatever. It's a game everybody plays, and it's cynical and disingenuous for either side to claim otherwise.

Yes, the real issue, as the Republicans rightly point out, is spending, which absolutely must be brought under control. Simply raising taxes to generate a larger amount of money to spend only makes the problem worse. But when the deficit is as huge as it is, refusing to even hypothetically consider the possibility of maybe discussing raising taxes to help lower the deficit strikes me as, to say the least, irresponsible.

So, we have to cut spending, and we have to at least think about taxes. The two are related, no matter how much the hyperconservative right would wish it otherwise. Today, I'll talk about cutting spending. On Sunday, I'll look at taxes.

Disclaimer: everything I know about economics could be placed in a thimble and still leave room for a herd of elephants and a brass band. I'm just sayin' ...

Let's start at the beginning. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States…”

That seems pretty clear to me: Congress can spend money, and has the authority impose taxes to get the money to spend. So far, so good. The devil is, of course, in the details.

What are the common defense and general welfare functions of government that tax revenue should pay for? The Constitution doesn’t say. They are easier to identify at the state and local level of government – things like police and fire protection, schools, and sanitation are services we generally expect our local (state and below) governments to provide. The higher one goes in the government, though, the less obvious are the things we can all agree should be paid for by tax revenue – most of us would probably agree on the need for an army, a court system, and the general legislative and executive mechanisms of government, but how about educational standards? Regulation of commerce? Social Security? Food safety and purity? Air traffic control? Workplace safety? Protecting minorities from discrimination? Aid to poor families? Printing every government publication in both English and a million other languages (because why should immigrants have to learn to speak English)?

Riddle me this, Batman: what should we cut, and by how much?

It’s easy to throw out sound bites like “$4 trillion in cuts,” but when you come down to naming the specific things to cut that will add up to that $4 trillion, you’ll be deafened by the bellowing of all the oxen being gored. Every government program you can name has its ardent defenders who can marshal great throngs of supporters, petitions with thousands of signatures, and reinforced platoons of expensive lobbyists to argue that it is vital to the life of the Republic and can’t possibly be terminated or reduced in any way.

So, what would you cut?

I have some suggestions (which I'll post here in a few days), and many people have logged their suggestions at websites like The National Taxpayers Union and Representative Eric Cantor's "You Cut Citizen Review of Government." But it's Congress that will have to make the tough decisions and incur the wrath of the constituents who will be angered by specific reductions.

I wish I had the answers, but I don't. I have ideas, and so do many others. What we don't have are leaders with the political will and courage to make the tough decisions in spite of pressure from vested interests (including you and I) ...

What should we cut? And what else do we need to do to dig our way out of the current economic crisis? Come back on Sunday, when we'll look at the unpleasant but necessary topic of taxes, and continue our discussion of the things we should cut.

Have a good day and a great weekend. Tomorrow is Cartoon Saturday, and not a day too soon.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Finally Here...

Those of you who went looking for today's post early this morning (or at the equivalent time in Brisbane, the UK, or other locations) were no doubt distressed to find nothing new in this space. I'm sorry. For once, I managed to sleep late, and once I got up I embarked on The Day of the Endless Chores and - sadly - missed my usual posting time.

You'll forgive me, won't you?

Most of today was taken up with hauling a large load of junk to the landfill (nothing like having a son-in-law with a borrowable truck!), power-washing the siding and the deck behind the house, and constructing The Swing From Hell.

Agnes has been salivating for some months now over a large, canopied swing she'd spotted at Costco that she thought would be just right for our deck. Yesterday, she finally succeeded in getting me to borrow Vin's (our son-in-law) truck and getting the swing for her.

And then the fun began...

The swing came unassembled (of course) in a box about 47 feet long, weighing eight tons and requiring a Bucyrus Erie crane to get it onto the truck. It features all steel construction (except for the cushions, of course), is held together by 17,682,957 screws, bolts, nuts, washers, spacers, and grommets, and comes complete with 97 pages of assembly instructions translated from the original Urdu into English by a native speaker of Xhosa.

The unwritten laws governing the construction of large objects out of many small parts on a deck apparently specify that a certain percentage of the small parts (generally those most crucial to the eventual safe operation of the object) will roll off the deck and disappear into the dense underbrush behind the house. I am in full compliance with those laws.

The swing is not yet finished. The frame is up ... twice ... (because I put it together backwards the first time), and I was trying to figure out the instructions on how to assemble the canopy when it started to rain. Thus, I get to look forward to part deux of the assembly of the Swing From Hell tomorrow.

I can hardly wait. I'll post a picture once it's done ... assuming it looks something like the picture on that 47-foot, 8 ton box.

Turning to other topics, today is the anniversary of the birthday (in 1883) of novelist Franz Kafka, whose stories of ordinary people caught up in bizarre and nightmarish situations (The Trial and The Metamorphosis are two of his most famous works) have given us the adjective kafkaesque - referring to situations characterized by a nighmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality. Republican economic policies, for instance.

Today also marks the day on which the Battle of Gettysburg ended in 1863. It may have been the largest military engagement ever fought in North America, involving more than 160,000 combatants, of whom some 8,000 were killed, along with more than 3,000 horses. Michael Shaara's novel The Killer Angels remains one of the best works of historical fiction dealing with the battle.

And now it's 10:15 PM, and time to try to coax Nessa out for a last walk before bed. This usually doesn't require any coaxing, but because every ass clown in Northern Virginia with a box of fireworks is shooting them off in preparation for tomorrow's Independence Day celebrations, she's cowering under the desk.

Have a good evening. More thoughts coming tomorrow. Happy Fourth of July!

Bilbo

I'm Just Not Sayin'

One of the things that drives me nuts (well, okay, Agnes would tell you it only requires a putt, not a drive, ha, ha) is the way our elected reprehensives make grand statements about what they're going to do, but never actually tell you how they're going to accomplish it. This is, of course, because the empty rhetoric they use to get elected is a good deal easier than coming up with the necessary (and often very unpopular) things that will have to be done to bring the promises about.

You may want to read this great article from Slate.com that I ran across the other day: "What We Talk About When We Talk About the Deficit: How Washington Avoids Having an 'Adult Conversation' About the Federal Budget." As author John Dickerson writes,

"Politicians in Washington like to talk about talking about the budget deficit. They acknowledge it. They emphasize the importance of talking about it. They suggest they have strong feelings about it. But when it comes to details, they get vague. Not since Bill Clinton's second term has there been a topic people talk about so much without wanting to be specific."

True enough. I think we all know that. Except for the politicians, and they know it, but know we'd never elect them if they told us the truth.

Anyhow, Mr Dickerson uses his article to summarize nine of the dodges most used by those we elect to avoid serious discussion of bringing down the deficit. Or, by extension, addressing almost any intractable problem. Here they are, in order from (as Mr Dickerson puts it), "from most embarrassing to most courageous," and with my inescapable commentary:

Diet Tomorrow: This one is the classic Congressional approach - simply propose new programs or major extensions of existing programs, but don't say how you'll pay for them. When pressed for specifics, tell the questioner, "I'll get back to you." You won't, and they'll forget.

The Blue Ribbon Duck: This one is my favorite, and nobody does it better than Congress. Call for a commission to study the problem, launch it with much fanfare, and let it die quietly because no one will ever remember it anyway. Should anyone ask about it, tell the questioner, "I'll get back to you." You won't, and they'll forget.

The Blue Ribbon Dodge: This one is actually an outgrowth of the Blue Ribbon Duck. In this one, though, you call for a commission to study the problem, launch it with much fanfare, and if it actually comes up with any suggestions, ignore them. If anyone asks about what happened to the recommendations, tell the questioner, "I'll get back to you." You won't, and they'll forget.

Spinach Some Day: This is actually the umbrella plan for avoiding tough decisions - simply look right into the TV camera and gravely state that it is necessary to cut wasteful and unnecessary programs (i.e., those that your party's lobbyists oppose). Then suggest no way to do so. When pressed for specifics, tell the questioner, "I'll get back to you." You won't, and they'll forget.

The Big Empty: Call for a balanced budget amendment or a spending cap, with no specifics about how to implement either. This is simply a variation on the Spinach Some Day ploy, and it's ingenious in its simplicity: you know Congress will never pass a balanced budget amendment, and if it did, it would simply legislate its way around it when necessary.

Fear: Run ad campaigns that use gloom-and-doom rhetoric to imply that any spending reductions or program terminations other than those you support will result in a complete and total shutdown of the government. Perhaps. But how would we notice? This is a traditionally Democratic approach, but is also used by Republicans to great effect (can you spell "death panels"?).

Lafferable: Declaring that the budget must be shrunk by spending cuts alone. This is a traditionally Republican approach that is very popular because it allows avoidance of any discussion of raising taxes while allowing focus on the termination of programs you don't like.

The Fish Story: You see this one all the time - empty suits making tiny cuts that address only a fraction of the problem, and then holding flashy press conferences to boast about them.

And finally,

The Young Adult: Now, we're getting somewhere. This approach is sort of the polar opposite of the Blue Ribbon Dodge, in that it supports the recommendations of the commission that make sense, even if they're politically unpalatable (or, worst case, politically suicidal). You don't see this one often, for obvious reasons.

Read the whole article and think about it. It will help you recognize - if not make sense of - the hot wind blowing from Congress.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Just Toolin' Along...

Yesterday's post, based on a Popular Mechanics article about really strange toilets, went over very well. I don't know if this is because my readers are turned on by toilets or because mentioning Popular Mechanics lends my random thoughts an undeserved air of technical competence. No matter...I'll take my readers how I get them.

So anyhow, speaking of Popular Mechanics...

Here's another interesting article from that magazine: Tools Everyone Should Own. I actually own some of them, in spite of being the world's most inept handyman. Of course, I have some commentary...

1. Sledge Hammer. Nothing says manly man like a sledge hammer. You can destroy anything with a sledge hammer, even a sledge hammer ... when I was in college, one of the fraternities had a fund raiser in which you paid $1.00 to take a swing at an old car with a sledge hammer. I paid my money, swung, and hit the car with the handle instead of the head, which snapped off the hammer. They didn't let me try again.

2. Center Punch. This is an amazingly useful device for making a hole right next to where you really wanted it.

3. Hammer. A very useful device for bending nails, making large dents next to nails, and creating ugly blood blisters under finger nails.

4. Multibit Screwdriver. Because you never know when you won't be able to find your center punch.

5. Safety Glasses. An important safety device, particularly useful when you're swinging a sledge hammer at an old car.

6. Adjustable Wrench and Pipe Wrench. These are very useful, and are interchangeable, particularly when you're using them as hammers.

7. Socket Wrench Set. The average socket wrench set has about 6,000 sockets in it, of which you only ever use two or three, which are lost.

8. Crosscut Saw. A wonderful tool for those of us who like to invent sound effects for children. A crosscut saw sounds just like, SSSH...voopa, voopa, voopa, voopa. The saw was invented by a seller of lumber so that he could sell more stock to people who don't use their ...

9. Measuring Tape. The old adage says "measure twice, cut once." That's the short version. The full adage actually says, "measure twice, cut once, shout DAMMIT!, go to Home Depot, buy more lumber."

And...

10. Extension Cord. Allows you to make mistakes with power tools further from an electrical outlet than otherwise possible.

Tools. Helping men feel either incredibly manly or hopelessly inept for thousands of years. You know where I fall on that continuum.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Wii, Wii, Wii All the Way Home...

Oui, we have a Wii.

For those of you who don't know what a Wii is, it's something which allows you to waste vast amounts of time and energy in an alternate reality.

Kind of like being a Tea Party person, but you can turn it off with the push of a button.

But anyhow...

Our son and our daughter each have Wiis, and we decided we (Wii?) ought to have one, too. After all, exercising with an oddly-featured digital copy of a personal trainer is so much nicer than doing the same exercises at the gym, where we have to endure the sideways glances and giggles of the buff, snickering gym rats as we try desperately to touch toes we haven't even seen for years.

The Wii is easy to install, assuming you have:

a. Access to an electrical engineer; and,

b. A space-age television with faster-than-light drive, a plagrastic variognometer calibrated in versts per angstrom per fortnight (squared), and the correct input plugs in an accessible location. (Note: There is no such thing as an accessible location when your TV is mounted on the wall...every available input plug you need is conveniently located on the back of the set, where it's dark, full of cobwebs, you cannot see anything, and you have about 1.5 inches of space in which to work.)

Miraculously, I managed to properly install not only the Wii, but also the wireless balance board. The wireless balance board is a high-tech device designed to transmit embarrassing information about your weight and body fat index to the Wii by way of the television set. Taken as a whole, the Wii system enables you to be insulted not by a living, breathing, sweating gym rat, but by a pudgy digital copy of yourself (cleverly known as a Mii, oui?).

So, we have a Wii. And we each have a Mii. My Mii is a wee me (as Fiona might say). And my Mii mocks me. What have Wii done...or we done?

Stay tuned to find out if my Mii gradually turns sleek and svelte instead of pudgy.

Wii'll let you know.

Oui.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Degree of Displacement

After many years of living with our yucky, threadbare carpets, we have finally decided to replace our upstairs carpeting with hardwood floors. This is, of course, a non-trivial exercise both economically (the stuff ain't cheap) and in terms of what we might call Degree of Displacement.

The economic part turned out pretty well. Agnes is a marvelous negotiator, and managed to get us a good price on the maple flooring she wanted, including installation and removal of the old carpeting and the cheap parquet flooring underneath, installed by yet another previous owner. Agnes is good at that stuff. I think if the government would let her negotiate with the Iranians, they'd not only pay us to come in and dismantle their "peaceful" nuclear facilities, but to replace them with synagogues.

The Degree of Displacement is another matter. This is a term I have coined to address the amount of flailing agony involved in finding places for all the stuff on and in all the shelves and drawers and cabinets in the affected rooms. You see, the flooring installers will move the furniture out of the way and replace it, but it has to be empty. This means finding a place for all the displaced stuff until the installation is done and the furniture moved back into place.

Until you have had to consider the Degree of Displacement, you never quite realize how much stuff you have. One of the advantages of a long military career was that we had to move every few years, which meant periodically getting rid of enough stuff to meet our weight allowance for each move. Now that we've been in one place for 19 years without the pressure of a pending move, however, we have accumulated a great deal of stuff.

Here are a few observations made over the last few days as we prepare for the arrival tomorrow morning of the installers:

1. Books are heavy.

2. Lots of books are extremely heavy.

3. All the cooking magazines we've been saving because each one had one good recipe in it have, in the aggregate, enough mass to affect planetary rotation.

4. If you dig far enough back in most drawers, you will find things that haven't seen daylight since the Coolidge administration.

5. There is not enough room on the same floor to store all the displaced stuff, which means that most of it must be carried downstairs.

6. Everything carried downstairs will eventually have to be brought upstairs.

7. Ben-Gay ointment does not come in large enough containers.

8. Have I mentioned how heavy books are?

Once the floors are done and everything is back in its place, the house will look wonderful, so we're keeping our eyes on the prize and trying to stay focused on the eventual outcome rather than the immediate aches, pains, and displacement. It's hard, though. One good thing is that I have managed to go through my library and select about 56 cubic yards of books that I can either donate to the library or try to sell through the local used book shops. Agnes hasn't gotten quite that far yet ... every time I suggest she prune her book collection, she gives me a look that would curdle milk and crack reinforced concrete ... but I'm still hopeful.

Stay tuned for the outcome of this major project. We're hoping to have the floors done and everything put back by about mid-week, when the next major project begins: putting up the Christmas tree and related decorations.

I can hardly wait.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo