Did anyone ever see Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays and Michael Jackson in the same place, at the same time?

i wrote pelosi asking her how she can justify bringing a bill to the floor of the House for a vote that members have had no chance to read (and even staff hadn't had a chance to read!).

i wonder if she will respond in any substantial fashion.

it should be unconstitutional for a congressman or senator to vote affirmatively on a bill they haven't read (and i would even settle for "having had their staff read.")

this republic of ours is going down the drain.

clarification: we're still in norcal. we bought a mini-mansion about a 1/2 mile down the street from the condo that we just sold.

we're pleased not to be paying for both properties! :-)

We sold our condo! Whoohoo!

happy father's day to all of you fathers out there.

parenthood puts *everything* in perspective.

Two main takeaways:

1. CMOS is dead, long live CMOS.

2. Systems are king.

IOTW, nothing is new.

Kathmandu Restaurant is a quite fine restaurant. I was with a couple of vegetarians and we ordered as such. I'd like to go back and try some of the chicken and lamb dishes.

I cannot believe he is three already.

White House see steeper deficit
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/67948.html

By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday projected 2009 and 2010 federal budget deficits far higher than it forecast just two and a half months ago, even as it continued to defy most experts and predict that the economy is headed for a strong comeback starting late this year.

Economists scoffed at the latest administration predictions.

"If they keep playing this game, they're going to have real credibility problems," predicted Brian Bethune, the chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight, an economic research firm.

The new administration budget said that the fiscal 2009 deficit would reach $1.84 trillion, or $89 billion more than forecast in February, while the 2010 figure now is estimated at $1.26 trillion, or $87 billion above the previous number. The fiscal 2008 deficit was $459 billion.

The new figures dwarf the $17 billion in budget reductions and program terminations that President Barack Obama proposed with a flourish last week, reductions that Congress is unlikely to approve in full.

Budget Director Peter Orszag, writing on his blog, explained that the latest changes, which are the final pieces of Obama's rollout of his $3.6 trillion fiscal 2010 budget, reflect "upward technical revisions" caused largely by lower-than-expected revenues and higher-than-anticipated costs for rescuing financial institutions.

...

Even with its more optimistic economic scenario, the administration projects record deficits for years to come. The annual deficit would drop to $512 billion by 2013, but then would begin to go up again, reaching $779 billion by 2019, as the costs of Social Security and government health care programs soar, the administration projects.

It's a grim picture, analysts said.

"Even using their . . . economic assumptions — which now appear to be out of date and overly optimistic — the administration never puts us on a stable path," said Marc Goldwein, the policy director of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

....
 

ignore the $17B in "savings" that obama is claiming as part of his proposed federal budget.

it is a slight of hand; it is meaningless [1]. it some cases it is even stupid [2].

this seems to be the story of the day. (i have suspicions that the media is "helping" the white house frame the budget story as such.)

don't be confused. it is critical that you focus on the size of the proposed budget, $3.6T, and the details.

this will mean a fiscal year deficit of more than $1.2T even under rosy scenarios. that's on top of the $1.8T deficit for the current fiscal year.

don't get me wrong -- i'm no deficit hawk. deficit spending on reasonable capital improvements is ok by me, but this budget is not that; it continues a fundamental structural problem with our federal budgets. (yes, bush was complicit as well.)

to make things worse, as if that was possible, this budget contains stupidly expensive ideas like "$1 billion to create an agency to oversee a national direct-deposit retirement-savings system." maybe the basic idea is a good one (i doubt it), but at $1B it is a loser.




[1] for the record, the previous administration proposed twice that in cuts, but it was no more meaningful.

[2] in some cases, the cuts are stupid, as in the case of the $35M being cut for E-LORAN.

I had my first business meeting with a billionaire.

I really didn't think it was possible to put too much hops in my beer, but I stand corrected:



Oh, Lord.

Why?

The question is here. We knew it was only a matter of time.

My bracket is ugly.

I had Louisville winning over Pittsburgh, so I'm completely out.

I also thought that Kansas would make it to the Elite Eight and Missouri would lose to Memphis. That Oklahoma would drop against Syracuse. That Gonzaga would upset NC, which would have been delightful had it happened.

I did pick Villanova over Duke, which was in fact delightful to watch.

That leaves me with 39/60 correct picks and 61/128 points using the standard scoring.

Ouch.