Where's the Thermostat?

Cold turkey. It’s that time; we stopped feeding logs into the woodstove yesterday as the daytime temperatures were back into the low 60’s. We’ll start the fire again if we have a sudden change, but for now the mornings are going to be a little bit chilly without that comforting radiance from the stove. (The cat thinks we’re crazy!)

During the past two months, we probably burned close to a cord of wood (almond). That’s $275 worth of comfort, just memories and ashes now. Lots of ashes.

I have this odd feeling that the Economic Stimulus Package that Washington/bushco have approved will turn out to be a dud. First, it’s a government program. Second, it’s a government program and last…yes, it’s run by the government. And I’m seriously worried that the politicians will use this opportunity to ignore the bloated bushco budget. Like all serious conservative Republicans, this president has grown the government at an incredible rate while sticking the middle and lower classes with the bill. Same thing that Reagan did. Right now, our defense budget is larger than ALL of the rest of the worlds countries…COMBINED. And he wants to increase it.

Defense budgets make me think of the F-22. State of the Art. Expensive. Very expensive. $148 million. Each. Buy 100 and get a discount. And not one has made it to the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan. No sorties. Of course not; how embarrassing if it was to be shot down by some terrorist armed with an old fashioned rocket launcher. Don’t want to take that chance! So we have bought a bunch of very expensive planes that fly around in ‘safe’ skies and make the stockholders of Lockheed and Boeing very happy.

Some good news…Wal*Mart had a sad last quarter financial report for 2007. As did most retailers; except for Costco, which reported a 7% increase over last year’s numbers. Costco=Union workers. Wal*Mart=Non-union workers.