I can't make this stuff up

EL PASO -- Four men were killed in a shooting at the OK Corral nightclub in Juárez early Monday, police said.

Read the rest of the little story in the world's worst newspaper. Think I read somewhere recently that the death count in Juaritos for the year was up to 1,000. I bet that's more than American deaths in Iraq this year.

Oh, so that's why they call it fall

Spent the whole day watching CNBC and CNN on and off, while the big deal in Washington went into the ditch. I've been afraid to check the balance on the 401(k), a proposition I usually call the Six-Horse Fund because of its frankly speculative nature. It's had years 40%+ and some the other direction ... an interesting bet for a non-risk-averse sort like me. On the bright side, I went and bought a pound of jumbo shrimp for six bucks and grilled them with a little bacon wrapped around them, made a green salad, washed it all down with some Portuguese white that went jes fine, thank you. Even if it's the end of the world, it's not the end of the world. Shrimp's still cheap in **Adrift and the weather's been beautiful of late. Tomorrow should be nearly as interesting.

Do cigars count as a green, leafy vegetable?

I'm always tickled when something I love – olive oil, red wine, avocados – is found to have health benefits. Don't guess it will ever happen with the stogies, but there are indicators that they're not as bad as the anti-tobacco zealots would want to make us believe. From a piece in Reason a few years back:

Once easily misled by the scare tactics of public health officials and anti-smoking activists, the mainstream press is starting to acknowledge something that medical studies have been finding for decades: The typical cigar smoker faces hazards far less serious than the typical cigarette smoker does.

Read it all here. On the other hand, Freud and U.S. Grant were both cigar smokers and both died of cancer of the jaw or throat. I told my doctor that my cigar-smoking uncle lived to 93 or 94 and my whiskey-drinking uncle lived to 90. Doc just said, "It probably kept them alive." Nothing like an enthusiasm to give you a reason to get moving in the morning, even if it's just to move to the chair on the porch for the first cigar of the day.

Are we on the downslope?

Journalist and patriot Georgie Anne Geyer has some pointed observations in her column of Sept. 25:

WASHINGTON -- Lurking behind the infamous $700 billion bailout that is monopolizing our attention these tumultuous days, loom other even more important questions -- deadly serious and historic questions -- that have become, all too suddenly, the true stuff of our new reality.

Read the whole thing here. I've always admired Geyer for her level-headed take on things, so her concern matters to me.

Shuffling off

Guy who sends me stuff sends me another funny obit from Dallas.

... Born April 3, 1951 in North Carolina. He was one of eight children. His older sisters regularly beat him up, put him in dresses, and then forced him to walk to the drugstore to buy their Kotex and cigarettes.

Sounds like he got out OK, if not alive.
Get to a certain age, you're gonna look over the death notices every morning, with special attention given to the decedents' ages. This week we had a woman check out who had the precise same D/O/B as my wife. We can only hope that fills the quota for that birthdate for the present time.

Myself hates this

Just saw Barack on TV speaking on the bailout bill. He used 'myself' as the subject of a sentence and then used 'I' as the object of a preposition. This guy is supposed to be the brightest in politics? It may be true, but if it is, the Republic is doomed. Lowers my estimation of Harvard, which already stood pretty low because of W's degree from there. Pronoun blunders annoy me inordinately. Don't they teach these nice distinctions any longer?

More bailout

From Timothy Egan op-ed in the NYTimes:

“I’m a dirt farmer,” said Senator Jon Tester, the Montana Democrat who still lives on his family homestead. “Why do we have one week to determine that $700 billion has to be appropriated or this country’s financial system goes down the pipes?”

Read the rest here.