I can hardly wait

My state is broke. So is yours, so don't go accusing me of parochialism here. My governor is somewhat dimwitted. (So is yours so dont...etc.) In an hour or so he's going to deliver the annual "condition the state" address and has conned the media out mountains of time and ink by promising a "huge surprise ... bold initiative ... major innovation" on education.

And I'll bet I'm the only guy in the whole wide world who thinks his major big surprise is that His Obamaness is printing more money for the teachers' unions and is going to send us some of it. I reckon I'd even bet a little that "Race to the Top" figures in the mystery of what Chet will say."

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As a matter of cute historical interest, my governor is one Chet "Y' Big Lug" Culver of lucky sperm fame. His daddy was one-term Sen. John Culver, about whose sperm I know nothing and don't need to. His luck was being a very close Harvard buddy of one Ted Kennedy, much of whose fortune and clout was made available first to father, then to son. Before he started spending his inheritance on getting elected to to office, Chet's career acme was as a voc-ed teacher and football coach..

EDIT: Cheshire cat grin. Polishing fingernails on lapel. Buncha fed "Race to the Top" money in the mail with a nice card from His Obamaness.

Sometimes most everything you need to know is in the headline. From Reuters this morning,

"Wall Street slips as investors brace for earnings start"

The market has been up quite a bit lately because of the possible end of the worst of the beginning of the recession's middle. And because we are getting out of Iraq. Or not. And because the Iran government is about to fall. Or isn't.

I don't think most investors are quite that spooky, but it seems that the bulk of the experts who write for them are common-loon crazy.

Because every three months, about the time quarterly earnings are announced, it occurs even to financial "journalists" that the value of a company's stock depends on how much money that the company (a) now has and (b) can earn.

Woodstock Redux, with a bang

Hey kids, if you didn't get a chance at Woodstock I, get a load of Woodstock II. You can can be part of it, and you won't even have to go to New York, roll around in the mud , listen to Bob Dylan, and bring home a social disease.

The venue is McHenry County, Illinois, which, as you'll note, is behind enemy lines -- right next door to the shire of His Obamaness . Woodstock is the county seat. Sportsmen and backers of amendments 2, 9, and 10 are organizing a push for a concealed carry law in Illinois.

Illinois is one of the states with no provision for citizens to protect themselves and their families via the CCW strategy.

Why don't you give these good guys a visit? It's moral support if nothing else.

Salty language note

Dr. Farley of New York is in your cupboards again, so he knows you're not being a good little consumer.

Salt. You're actually eating salt, you sad anti-social son of a bitch.

The doctor is really hurt. He and the Gotham Health and Purity Patrol went to all the trouble of outlawing trans-fat so you'll look just like those 1938 Goebbels pictures of fit and happy Teutons. So what do you do? You eat salt. You imperil your heart. Unforgivably, you often actually enjoy food.

That leaves Dr. Farley no choice but to to sit on the food industry and demand that it cripple its products with low-salt or no-salt recipes. Then we can all enjoy salt-free bacon, peanut butter, Hormel chili, and kielbasa.

When someone clued the good doctor that raised bread comes from salted dough he agreed criminalizing salt did , errrr, present some problems...

"But, Farley said, simply asking the public to be more careful about what they eat hasn't worked, in part because consumers have too few low-sodium choices."

Too few choices? Tofu. Rice. Beans. Alfalfa sprouts. Raw oats. Pearl barley. All kinds of mouth-watering choices. Doc.

Never mind. The killer crystals of doom in a shaker make a good excuse for the Bloombergian people-control apparatchik to pressure the food industry to undertake a "voluntary" salt dump. Then the Regulators, who know a good control mechanism when they see it, start rewriting the rules about which foods are eligible for purchase by the schools, the military, using food stamps, WIC checks, Pell grants, student loans, etc. So much for volunteerism for any food processor interested in staying in business

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I hereby order you not to even think about how the New York Citizen Salt Control Initiative of 2010 might find favor with the Washington creators of National Health Care . Gee, they might reason that your bag of salted pistachios is a national public health issue and also a federal economic concern. They might decide that since Washington pays for fixing your body, Washington owns the right to regulate what you put into it, using the police power of the state to whatever extent necessary, eh?

"Freeze, asshole. On the ground. Drop the Planter's bag. Spit out the nuts. Do it NOW!"

If all this doesn't jack your personal paranoia level up to a level more in accord with reality I'll kiss your arse at high noon on a balcony of the New York Times building and give all your friends an hour to change into their Inner Party uniforms.

EDIT: I am very sorry I wrote the preceding three words. I'm afraid it may call Dr. Farley's attention to the probable health benefits of calisthenics in front of the telescreen.