hurry up and wait

shalmestere's department potluck is today, so I agreed to drive her and her contribution to work. The car's "check engine" light came on; naturally, no indication of what needs checking, or how urgently, but I was planning to work from home today anyway, so after dropping shalmestere at work, I went on to the dealer where we get most of our car service. The road was moderately fouled up by weather -- a flooded lane here, a non-functioning stop light there -- so it took a while. And now I've been in the waiting room, where the most interesting reading matter is the Wall Street Journal Fashion Issue, for over two hours. Grump, grump, grump...

Update: the oxygen sensor needs replacement, and the fuel injector needs decarbonization. Neither of which was urgent, I think, but I'm here anyway; might as well get them done. That'll be $$$ and another hour and a half. So much for the stuff I was going to get done today....

Michael Moore on how to win in November

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/five-ways-the-democrats-c_b_746761.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=100110&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry

From Huffington Post, of course. I find many of the entries on Huffington sorta lacking in substance, just cheerleading and/or whining. This isn't the most penetrating political analysis you'll ever see, but it is at least neither cheerleading nor whining.

National debts and Federal deficits

The end-of-fiscal-year figures are out, and I've updated my Federal Deficits web page.

Depending on how you look at the numbers, the Obama administration comes out as either by far the best deficit-cutter ever, by far the worst deficit-accumulator ever, or a pretty-good deficit-cutter (comparable to Clinton). Things are all over the map because fiscal year 2008-2009 was so outrageously expensive, due to both Bush and Obama decisions. The numbers should make more sense when we have another fiscal year to include in the table. Watch this space next October 1.