the rest of these rats are trying to emit a better image of themselves on the sinking USS America.

too little, too late.  bernake is worse than greenspan in that he ACTUALLY doesn't know what's going on.  greenspan used to go before congress, speak in a martian wordspeak coded inpediment, and then shrug...bernake just looks stupid.  and, its getting worse,,,the fool dosn't actually have a monitary policy.  he figures:  just let it be and it will sort itself out. 

come on, come on, let's go, let's go...

danny, charles hasn't posted here on the topic of deregulation...does that mean that this is an off-thread post???

We arrived home at three AM after spending two and a half days on the train.  One night we had a bedroom and another a roomette.  If you're travelling by yourself, We'd definitely recommend the latter, which actually works quite well for two, if you're agile.  The bedroom also requires some agility to get in the top bunk.  The spouse decided we should just share the bottom 40" wide bed and I think I actually preferred climbing up to the bunk in the roomette.

Because we changed reservations, we ended up arriving in New Hampshire by bus (an hour from Boston) and discovered to our delight that the state of NH has built a transportation center in Portsmouth which it leases to the bus company and which is open around the clock.  The first bus to Boston leaves at three AM and stops at the airport.  That means that people can take advantage of cheap off-peak flight rates (one woman got a round-trip from Myrtle Beach, SC for $90 ) and people have a safe, clean, well-lighted place to wait.  Of course, the bus station in Boston, adjoining the train station, is also open around the clock.  Perhaps they don't let people sleep in the waiting room and that accounts for people in sleeping bags sleeping just outside the doors.  There are probably rules against that, but they don't seem to be enforced.

Speaking of rules, we learned from out cab driver that the police in Durham do not permit cabs to sit at the train station or downtown to wait for fares.  Something to explore.  I can't see why there would be an objection.  There are plenty of places for them to wait withoug obstructing traffic since we've built all kinds of bus pull-offs.

On the way home I read a Scott Simon novel about Chicago, "Windy City," which deals with local government and politics.  From what we've seen of Chicago, it's a city that does work.  I was surprised to find that Boeing, which "lost out" on the tanker contract, has a corporate headquarters there.  Since McCain had been championing the other outfit, one has to wonder if the reconsideration of the bid doesn't reflect some input from Obama.  Since I was already unsympathetic to how the Air Force was doing business, I was delighted to visit the Boeing store and buy stuff for the grand kids (rockets, and planes, and T-Shirts, and pen-lights, etc) and have it sent from the store ($8 ) so it got there today.  (In comparison, the spouse sent a manilla envelope with some official documents fo the Town of Durham from NM that took several days and cost $16 ).  Presumably, Boeing has a regular contract with FedEx and gets a special price.

that people who handle money shouldn't have to comply with socially determined standards to keep them honest was really a do-do.  But, I guess every once in a while we need a test to demonstrate that something really doesn't work.

It should be noted that the strategy of keeping the American economy going as a consumer enterprise focused on housing and household modernization has been in place for almost two decades and never did trickle down to the poorest among us.  Somebody clearly made a profit putting people in manufactured housing that doesn't last very long and doesn't represent a qualitative improvement.

But, the so-called "sub-prime crisis" is largely the result of unethical behavior.

Funny that Republicans are keen on legislating personal sexual and reproductive behavior, but don't want to touch financial behavior.

Tax the movement of money and get a handle on the liquidity sloshing around in the hedge funds. speculation in commodities is about to surge

since we are about to go to a full war footing best start printing those gas rationing coupons, because without price controls the economy will tank bigtime with $6 gas

Congress seems hell bent on passing a war resolution just like 2002 with Democratic complicity

If Obama is elected(which seems less likely in a new war) he will have to be up to an FDR size challenge

al Queda can sucker us into another war just by staging a terrorist attack and leaving Iranian fingerprints

my personal security alert is code red

I don't put anything past the reach of a gang that would keep hostages in Tehran for Jimmy Carter with an arms deal so Reagan could get the credit

and if you think that farfetched McCain was in Columbia with advance knowledge of those hostages being released

and the anthrax attack team is still on the loose

talk about regulation. non stop nonsense about Iran and how it will help mcsame.
someone stop this insanity.