I doubt that this will get much play in the mainstream U.S. press, but the former VP of the World Bank, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, had a few comments regarding the current U.S. economy. He doesn't give high marks to the Bush administration for their planning of the economic impact of the war.

Also, the other day the British government was ordered, under Freedom of Information requests, to release details on the minutes of meetings held by former PM Tony Blair on that governments planning for the Iraq war. We may discover some interesting tidbits there as well, again if the U.S. press decides to keep us informed.

While I don't think I'll ever find myself singing "I Love L.A." with honesty, I do find that I'm growing to love living in Southern California more & more. Donna and I have only been here for about eighteen months, but I find it harder all the time to remember what it was like NOT living here.

Even on those rainy and cold days we have had the past couple of months it doesn't compare to the weeks of bitter cold, ice & snow that we had to deal with every year. Growing up in New England, of course, it seemed that that was just the way it was and I couldn't envision living anywhere else. My first taste of California, back in the mid-70s, was pretty eye opening and each time I returned here I thought how wonderful it would be to actually put down roots.

When I'm asked now by folks if I miss living in New York I can say without hesitation that I don't. We do miss friends and family.

It's harder on Donna since she was so close to her family and she had so many close friends who are still back in Brooklyn. I, on the other hand, had only a few folks who I could call 'close friends', and even when Donna and I were living in Connecticut I rarely went back to see either my oldest friend, Gerry, or my sisters. I think a lot of that has to do with the years I spent in the Navy or living either in other states or other parts of Connecticut. Most of my life at this point has been spent away from where I grew up, so most of my ties have been severed long ago.

I hope this hasn't sounded like I'm complaining, since I'm not. I have never been happier than I am at this point. I enjoy my job, have a wonderful wife and a step-daughter of whom I couldn't be prouder. Oh, yeah, we have a cat and my affection for her depends upon the hour of the morning she feels is time for breakfast.

Yeah, things are pretty good! (By the way, that's a view from Lake Mission Viejo a few miles from us.)

Belated birthday love & wishes to my Bingo Bunny!

She knows why.

Priorities - John McCain VoteVets.org Ad

Nothing I can add to this!

As a vet myself I fully support this message.

Frozen Grand Central

Tell me this is NOT brilliant.

Sometimes I miss NYC!

Man, all this house hunting, or to be more accurate condo-hunting, is exhausting!

To be honest, Donna is really doing most of the work and I'm simply being called in when we actually go to visit these places. She's doing a lot on line which does make things a bit easier. I can't imagine the number of places we'd have to visit if so much information (and photographs) weren't available via the real estate sites.

We had placed an offer on one place we 'sort of' liked, although there would have been a bit of work to make it suitable. The bank even accepted the offer, but we began having second thoughts. I'm glad we did since we found a much nicer place (actually two in the same complex) for less money. We were told by a realtor that other bids had been submitted on the one we liked most, but you never know if they are telling the truth of trying to push you. What we did was to put in a bid higher than they had the place listed for, but equal to what they had listed the week before. Only a few thousand dollars different, but they took our bid over two others. (Again this was according to the realtor.) We have our fingers crossed!

I have to make some comment on the major story today:

I wish Fidel Castro had hung on until next year, just so G.W. left office before he did. Naturally, the unelected Prez had to make comments about 'phony elections' set up by the Castro Brothers. Hard for anybody other than the folks at Fox to take that with a straight face, considering what happened in Florida in 2000.

News Flash: Brit Humes accuses Michelle Obama of being an "arch-Liberal" who is ashamed of patriotism. Yada-yada-yada, film at eleven. (You can find the video over on You Tube or at the TPM website. Only the blonde, Fox News bimbo in the mini-skirt makes it even more absurd.

Happy Valentine's Day to my wife, Donna! You came into my life when I needed you most.

FYI: Apparently, here in Orange County, in at least some of the public schools they no longer celebrate this as Valentine's Day. As St. Valentine is a Catholic martyr, the day promotes religion. At the school it is celebrated as "Loved Ones Day".

I'm neither religious or overly P.C., but I think it is a bit silly, don't you?

I just had to get that out there once I heard about it earlier today.

There's an interesting article over on the SKEPTIC website, as part of the eSkeptic newsletter. I highly recommend you subscribe, if you don't already.

Writer Steve Salarno talks about how mainstream television news has become flawed, generally in trying to draw in ratings over content. In doing this they no longer educate us about what is 'really' going on but rather strive to entertain us between commercial advertisements.

"Stay tuned, we're going to talk about child predators stalking your kids. But first, here's a commercial on dealing with erectile dysfunction."

Not sure if I'm in total agreement with all of Salarno's arguments, but he does make a number of valid points. How can we trust the media if they twist the facts to make the story more interesting, rather than simply telling us what happened and allowing us to judge.

Star Wars Music Video

This is for The Child!

Donna and I spent part of Sunday going around the area with an Realtor checking out some places for sale. We looked at almost half a dozen places, not counting looking at a few places from the outside on Friday night after work. As Donna says, they would have to pay her to live in a couple of them!

We found one place which seems to have just about everything we want, so we are going to start looking into some of the financial stuff that has to be worked out. Some places will accept VA Loans and other places really try to talk you out of using them.

I'm working tomorrow night but Donna will be taking The Child and Michael over to see what they think.

Star Trek TAS Should've been a librarian

I often feel this way!

It appears as if the Anti-Christ is stepping away from his White House bid. Satan can't be happy about this and I'm sure the Romney boys will be signing up for military service now. After all, they are no longer serving their country by helping their father run for office. What better way to do their part then putting on the uniform and heading to Iraq for a year.

Damn! I did not see this coming at all. Guess that frees up all those delegates to move over to Ron Paul for the convention, huh?

I just caught the headline a few minutes ago and haven't even had a chance to see what the major bloggers and political sites have to say. OMG!!! What will Rush do?

It looks like the Democratic nomination could go all the way to the convention, in which case the SUPER DELEGATES will really make the difference. Maybe time for Obama to bring out the Kryptonite. :-)

I'm still convinced that Romney is the Anti-Christ so I can't say I'm saddened by his problems. Read somewhere last night, somebody making the joke that Romney only seems to win in states where he or his family own homes. Time to check with ReMax, Mitt!

Interesting that the pundents are all pointing out that Huckabee only seems to be winning in southern or border states. They say it as if it is a weakness. Hell, hasn't the South been the big strength of the Republicans since Nixon? McCain seems to be the only 'national' candidate the GOP is fielding and he is hated almost as Hillary in some circles. (And who of us doesn't love that?)

On the other hand, I believe that John McCain would be the hardest GOP candidate for the Dems to run against, especially if the nominee is Hillary. Between the number of folks who consider her Satan's bride and the attraction conservative Dems & moderate Republicans have for McCain I don't think she could overcome either factor. Who would have thought that folks would find a Black man less scary than a white female wife & mother?

I know I'll catch flack for that last remark.

Update: I forgot to mention that Donna told me last night that she had voted for Obama. She changed her mind after talking to friends back east. Caught me totally off guard! Have I said how much I love this woman?

I voted before coming into work today. One of my neighbors works at the polls and told me that there were over a hundred people coming in to cast their ballot in the first hour. It slowed down a bit after, but I had to wait a few minutes to get to the Democratic machine.

Donna and I cancelled each other out with our votes for the Democratic nominee, but were in agreement for most of the propositions on the ballot. It will be interesting to read and listen (when I can) to the results coming west as the day progresses. I get out at 9:00pm tonight and will be curious to see how long it will take for California to be called. I don't plan on sitting up all night, either.

An interesting thing out here, which may effect things in the Democratic race.

I was listening to the local NPR station and the show's host was taking calls. At least three people called in, during the 30 minute segment, reporting the same thing. Apparently all the callers had thought they had registered as 'independents' but had in face been signed up as members of the American Independent Party. They didn't know this until they attempted to vote in the Democratic primary (where you don't have to be registered Democrat to vote) and were told they could not.

The host didn't follow through on this but I was left to wonder two things.

First - Didn't these people look at the registration card which you receive in the mail shortly after you register? It states the Party in which you are registered, if you did pick one.

Second - I was wondering if these folks registered on their own, or happened upon one of the tables you'll find in malls & shopping plazas where folks get you to register to vote. Don't want to point fingers or accuse anybody of anything, but could members of the AIP have manned such a table and played around with the registration paperwork? If this turns out to be a major state-wide problem there should be some investigation.

The only 'result' I heard before coming in was that Mike Huckabee was announced as the winner of the West Virginia Republican caucus. Probably not unexpected, but a demonstration that the GOP nomination might not be wrapped up today as some folks predict.

Not the final I was hoping for yesterday, but certainly a great game. What the hell happened to the Patriot defense? I think they finally began believing the hype and thought they could coast through the game. Oh, well....

Some fun commercials, but everybody is talking about them and you can view them over on YouTube until you can't stand them anymore. By the way, anybody reading this actualy go to the GoDaddy.com site for the 'Exposure' video? Am I even supposed to know who that woman was?

I think my personal fave was the Coke commercial with Stewie, Underdog and Charlie Brown. Hope I didn't give it away!