Get a rope!

Tim Egan in his NYT blog writes of the mood of the country:

If Americans are walking without a skip in their step, and maybe with a pitchfork in one hand, you can’t fault them. Gallup found that one in five people say their finances have already been hurt “a great deal.” On Tuesday, consumer confidence fell to the lowest level since the Conference Board started tracking popular sentiment 41 years ago. A bare 11 percent say the country is headed in the right direction.

Read all here. I still feel that with all the billions and billions of bucks floating around the debacle, we could afford one lousy billion to fund a special prosecutor's office to take a look at the financial manipulations and peculations that led to the mess.

This cowboy can't be throwed

There's a big lab at the UT Med branch in Galveston that houses some of the most frightening organisms on the planet, the viruses such as Ebola that could well wipe out half the human race if they got loose in the population. [Whether that would be a totally bad thing is a discussion for another post.] Despite the fact that Galveston Island gets whomped by some ferocious winds, the people at the lab swear that it is unsinkable.

“It’s crazy, in my mind,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. “I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.”

Read the whole story here in the NYT.

Recession?

While we were driving around north of Loop 410 in San Antone, I noticed a sign on a big-barn restaurant looking to hire line servers. The wage on offer was $9/hour. Despite that, there are panhandlers on a lot of street corners with whiny signs soliciting handouts. Nine bucks an hour is really pretty good pay for a job that almost anyone is equipped to do. Does panhandling pay better than that?

Sign for the times

Guy who sends me stuff sends this:

Made you grin, didn't it?

Day of devotion

Oh boy ... today we observe a day of high significance in our belief system. We have studied the holy writings [Racing Form] and will make a pilgrimage to the temple at Retama. I love Breeders Cup race day. Last year we were in Montevideo and went at Hipódromo Maroñas, the track there. [You don't see grubby old horseplayers kissing each other on the cheeks at Retama, but that was quite ordinary at Maroñas.] We hope for signs of favor from the gods of the place and that our offerings at the sacrificial counters will be returned to us nine-to-twofold at least.

Bad joss

The NYTimes reports a 51.4% drop in Q3 profits. A CNBC crawl reported that the stock has been reduced to junk status. Per the Gray Lady herself:

The company raised its quarterly dividend last year to 23 cents a share from 17.5 cents. Analysts have criticized that move in light of the company’s dwindling profits and noted that the dividend was a chief source of personal income for members of the Sulzberger family, who control the company.

Ahh, the newspaper biz, unraveling before our eyes. To read the Times on the Times, go here. Much as the paper can annoy with its biases, it's still the most thorough paper we have in this country and it's sad to watch it tanking.

Norther

About 9:50 this evening, our long-awaited norther arrived ... the trees outside started to audibly flailing around and the temp dropped. It's a fine day that the first norther arrives in South Texas. You can figure on going from mostly T-shirts and shorts to jeans and T-shirts, but with flannels over them. Maybe put away the cotton summer cap and get out the wool winter job. Dog mostly ate the winter corduroy cap. Too bad. We can consider more stews and soups because the pot simmering on the stove adds both desirable warmth and a tantalizing perfume to the atmosphere in the house. I know, I know ... it'll be back up in the mid-80s in a day or so, but it's nice to savor the idea of the first serious cool-off. Not too far north, people are suffering and snowy. We can skip that.