Once Again

by Bryan

14 comments

1 Steve Bates { 11.18.10 at 7:11 pm }

This was a common theme of the late lamented Molly Ivins. One time (I think it was 1994) she wrote of her dismay at the election of a Republican majority, then of her thought that, oh well, at least they’ll control the deficit, then of smacking her forehead with her palm as she remembered that Republicans never, ever do that, they only talk about it.

I fear the Republican in the White House today may actually succeed in eliminating the deficit… and with it, the nation. If you like to eat regularly, count on feeling deprived a lot in a few years.

2 Bryan { 11.18.10 at 8:51 pm }

I don’t stay up on the price of other things, but the cost of cat food has been rising at an absurd rate. The 20 pound bag of kibble is now only 16 pounds with no change in price for the bag.

Ice cream is another item that was “downsized” from a half gallon to a quart and a half.

Instead of cat food, it may be time to investigate the gerbil diet.

The Republicans run up the deficit, and complain that the Democrats aren’t paying for it quick enough.

3 Badtux { 11.18.10 at 9:15 pm }

The rat diet is going to be the next craze, methinks. Time to start getting together recipes for rat courtbouillon, rat etoufee, rat creole, rat gumbo, rat jambalaya, rat bisque… yes, the Cajun recipes for these can certainly be adapted for rat, Cajuns will eat almost anything that doesn’t eat them first :twisted:.

– Badtux the Louisiana Penguin

4 Bryan { 11.18.10 at 9:51 pm }

They are just a smaller type of rabbit 😉 Change the name and they’ll be selling it in the French Quarter in no time. Maybe Cornish game rabbits?

5 Kryten42 { 11.19.10 at 10:42 pm }

I’ve been reading Krugman’s blogs the past week over all this kind of thing. He get’s pretty frustrated at times with commenter (understatement!) Poor sod… Even though he knows that many willfully misunderstand because they don’t want to believe it. Yeah, I feel his pain too!

I like this one:
Cheese-eating VAT-paying Surrender Monkeys

LOL yeah… American Politicians are a parody of themselves! A—mazing! 😉

6 Bryan { 11.19.10 at 11:24 pm }

It is the curse of the teaching class, you want people to understand what you are saying, but you can’t overcome belief with facts.

No matter how many times supply-side economics fail, the true-believers want to try it again. They refuse to accept the fact that it fails because it is a flawed concept.

7 hipparchia { 11.19.10 at 11:51 pm }

cornish game rabbits!

you just made my day

8 Bryan { 11.20.10 at 12:04 am }

The joys of survival school and the food aversion course. It’s all protein, just hold that thought.

9 Kryten42 { 11.20.10 at 12:14 am }

The joys of survival school and the food aversion course. It’s all protein, just hold that thought.

😆 Yeah! It always amuses me when someone says to me something like “How can you eat that?” I either say nothing just smile or say something like “Easy.” Part of our final survival training was being tossed into the Simpson desert with a backpack, a few rations, basic tools & a knife, and a couple canteens of water. We had to walk to a base that would take 20+ days to get there. 🙂 It was fun… Hmmm. Oh! Before we were dropped, we spent a few months increasing our tolerance to arsenic. The desert is full of it. It wouldn’t do to die from arsenic poisoning during the first week. (but they didn’t mind if we had the mother of all stomach aches!)

And yeah, Cornish game rabbits sound pretty good! 😆

10 Bryan { 11.20.10 at 12:21 am }

When you buy food from street vendors in Asia or the Middle East you learn to never ask what’s in it.

Some of the people in the course were having “issues” with forest game. They didn’t like the thought of skinning things or cleaning them. You have to wonder what they would do if they had to depend on farming to stay alive, or if they saw the inside of a commercial food processing plant.

11 hipparchia { 11.20.10 at 12:24 pm }

When you buy food from street vendors in Asia or the Middle East you learn to never ask what’s in it.

no need to travel long distances to exotic locales, i learned this one long ago in mexico. got a chance years later to reaffirm it in puerto rico.

Some of the people in the course were having “issues” with forest game. They didn’t like the thought of skinning things or cleaning them.

which is why i prefer seafood for my animal protein source. after years of scuba diving, i came to see fish as my friends and now hate fishing, but in an emergency survival situation it’s something i could do without a qualm — especially if it involves oysters. 😀

12 Bryan { 11.20.10 at 3:34 pm }

Oh, I know what’s in Mexican street food, but I don’t tell others, because there are a number of things that you don’t find in the local Albertsons.

I avoid seafood because of the water, not what’s managing to live in it.

13 Badtux { 11.20.10 at 5:03 pm }

Still ROFL over our local troll’s alternate universe. In *this* universe, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis statistics (see their web site), per-year economic growth under Carter averaged 3.25% (or basically identical to that of Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower), and under Reagan averaged 3.85% — better, but not by an enormous amount. In *his* universe, apparently the Carter years were a free fall economic collapse.

This is not to defend Carter — I remember the Carter administration well, I was there. Carter was a Southern conservative faced with huge problems that simply overwhelmed him (the vast majority of the U.S. Navy had been built during WW2 and was completely worn out, the U.S. Army had been destroyed in Vietnam and was still in the process of being rebuilt as an all-volunteer force, two different heavy bomber designs to replace the B-52 had been brought to near completion only to be rendered obsolete by advances in Soviet air defenses, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian Revolution, the giant spike in oil prices caused by the Iranian Revolution), and his economic policies were basically traditional conservative ones of balance the budget and deregulate everything, policies completely incapable of dealing with the economic problems caused by the spike in oil prices. So he wasn’t a very good President. But he certainly was not Herbert Hoover II either — he was quite similar to Dwight D. Eisenhower in his economic policies, and got basically the same results. But wait, that’s *this* reality, not the one that Mr. Troll apparently lives in. I wonder what color the unicorns are there? 😈

14 Bryan { 11.20.10 at 7:58 pm }

Adding trillions to the deficit does not reduce it. Chuck Spinney worked in the Pentagon during the Reagan years pointing out the waste in the procurement process and anyone can look as the readily available data that shows the unspun truth about the effect on deficits of the Reagan and the two Bushes.

Trying to spin this stuff is just absurd when anyone with a computer can verify the numbers for themselves.

I would assume the unicorns change color based on the needs of the inhabitants, Badtux, because everything else seems to work like that in their universe.