Okay, this is probably the last of the foreseeable posts on the Wallstreet bailout – and probably the most serious. I spend the last week extremely pissed off about the bailout. Here were a bunch of idiots absurdly inflating the price of housing, with other idiots actually loaning them money to do so, more idiots treating the bad loans as assets and still more idiots insuring them against loss under ridiculous assumptions. It’s not really a surprise that the whole thing blew up. The only surprise is that it took as long as it did. Hell – 5 years ago in late 2003 when K and I bought our current place, we were worried that there was a housing bubble inflating prices beyond what the properties were really worth. And this was in North Carolina which didn’t have the hottest housing market. ...

Welcome to the new socialist state… comrade. From Propublica, an inflation adjusted comparison of bailouts.

As a public service announcement, I am hereby warning the people I know that in light of the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and the entire freaking banking system, all of which will cost tax payers about $1 trillion, the next person that tells me that deregulating markets will provide a solution to anything will be asked to STFU. thank you and good night

Oh, on an entirely unrelated note, the U.S. Constitution was signed 221 years ago today – happy birthday! Okay, it wasn’t ratified for a couple of years after that, but still… If you’ve got some time, take a read. It’s still the most impressive government document I’ve ever read. A few years ago, I wanted to start a project that took the individual clauses of the constitution and traced the arguments for and against them back to the original sources or at least to the debates between the signing and ratification. The Federalist Papers, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison and many of the documents collected in the two volume Library of America’s Debate on the Consitution would have featured prominantly. Never did have the time to kick that off.

So, one more update on Gustav in Baton Rouge and then I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled odd musings, rants and wildlife pictures. First, the good news – I got a text message from my mother last week. They got power back! Only 10 days without power. I suppose that’s not too bad. No word from K’s parents, but they had moved into K’s sister’s condo that did have power, so I’m guessing they’re still there. ...

I spoke to my mom for a little while this evening and got an update on where things stand in Baton Rouge or at least in her corner of it. A summery for those of you interested in Baton Rouge: The news keeps talking about how mild things were in New Orleans, but the only time you hear about Baton Rouge is in passing. For example, I’ve heard at least two NO evacuees mention that things are better in NO than in the shelters in BR. That is, in part, what’s driving the exodus back south. While the winds weren’t as bad in BR as they were in NO, they were (near) record winds for the city. BR has more trees and they haven’t experienced winds like this, so there were a lot of trees that fell down. The local power company is estimating six to eight weeks before they get power to everywhere in the city. There are major grids in the city that don’t have power and then once those major sections are restored, they will still have to restore to the local homes/offices. My parents did find a plumber to get the water line fixed. They are on the waiting list for a tree guy that can cut up a tree trunk as large as the one that fell in their yard (3′?) – it’s not really a do it yourself job. Almost every yard in my parents’ neighbourhood has a tree down. Most of the houses have experienced some damage. Probably 20% of the houses have trees through the roofs. There are a large number of cars that were struck by falling trees. Many of the power poles on the main road outside of the neighbourhood are down. In the neighbourhood, there are few intact sections of power line more than 3 to 4 houses long. Entergy will probably have to replace many poles and string a lot of new line. There is a curfew in effect. The National Guard did fire shots (in the air?) when some people tried to break into a FEMA trailer full of tarps. Good news: there is fuel in many gas stations. Bad news: there’s no power to pump it with. Stations with fuel and power have long lines, in some cases backing up down the road. My parents underestimated the amount of gasoline their generator requires (about 5 gallons a day) and are trying to find more 5 gallon cans. It’s still raining and there’s little power, so some underpasses are flooding. The humidity is very high. To the point where my parents’ wood floors are damp and are occasionally collecting puddles. Oh, and the mosquitoes are breeding, so the health authorities are warning people about West Nile. There aren’t too many stores open, those that are open can’t accept credit cards (no phone lines) and so are requiring cash. Taken as a whole, it reminds you of a post-apocalyptic distopian movie with people stocking up on water, fuel, food, guns, cash and gold. Maybe Mad Max, The Stand or The Postman. I suppose a comparison to Water World would be in poor taste…

Both K’s and I are from Louisiana, Baton Rouge to be specific, so we kept a close eye on Hurricane Gustav over Labor Day weekend. Fortunately, it looks like the storm weakened and the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been. There were a couple of levees in New Orleans that were topped (a good thing the storm surge wasn’t any higher or there would have been major flooding). ...

Just got back from a mini-reunion of Cramers in Tennessee. This was all of my uncles and cousins on my father’s side with the exception of my sister who has a three-week old baby at home. To answer the obvious question, no. No one lives in Tennessee, it’s just a more or less central place. We came in from Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Washington D.C. and New Jersey. A few notes: ...

I knew that there were a lot of chemicals that when ingested could make you stupid. Drugs, sure. Lead and mercury, definitely. But apparently even thinking about oil makes people stupid. Consider the following: For weeks, republicans have been pushing the idea that either a) the Cubans are drilling in Cuban waters off the coast of Florida; or b) that the Chinese are drilling for oil in Cuban waters off the coast of Florida. The only problem of course is that this is demonstrably false. ...