we got one of those panel chingalingas already in Texas

Quitter Barbie, Nanookie of the North

Ex-guvvie, bless her, she keeps harping on that death thingy.
Lord, the stuff they keep making up about health-care reform!

Here's our death panel in Huntsville.
Lie down on it, and we will make you dead. I don't think we should do this.
Everybody we put down on this panel is a child of god.
Seems wrong for humans to get in the way of god working in a person to redeem her, to redeem him. No matter what he did or she did.
When we kill people here, we interrupt god's work in them.

Before this we used a chair to deliver death.
Looks like this. Take a good long look at how we kill people. In Florida this time.
(Picture from a website where execution is explored in detail.)

Death is real. It will happen to you. Me. All of us.
Be prepared for it, make plans for your death.
Seems like a good idea to discuss it with your family, your god, your faith community, your doctor, friends, neighbors, anybody who will listen to you. As you make your choices.
Some of us don't get a choice. I watched my 55-year-old husband die of sudden cardiac arrest six days short of getting health-care coverage at his new job.
I want EVERYBODY to have HEALTH CARE.
No exceptions. Just do it.

Texas PUC stooges stick it to us

From left, head robber-baron henchman Barry T. Smitherman, Chairman Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC), with commissioners Donna L. Nelson and Kenneth W. Anderson, Jr.
Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Governor crony? Token woman? Mars inhabitant?

Go ahead, click the links, read their bios.

At left, the more likeable Stooges,
although Donna up there seems like a nice woman, from her bio.

Our three Texas stooges are turning our electricity provider Oncor into thugs by rewarding bad behavior.
Nutshell situation:

• Electric meters mandated for updating. Good idea.
• Oncor rushes out and buys some meters. Wrong move.
• PUC sets standards for new "smart" meters. Big ooops.
• Oncor whines about bad business decision. Suck it up, y'all.
• PUC says poor baby wasted money on meters, you need a rate boost. Huh?

When every every thing is trending down, like oh...
natural gas prices,
consumption of goods,
consumption of services,
employment,
natural gas prices, did I mention those?
I meant the natural gas they use to generate electricity.
That natural gas. It's cheaper now.

Yeah, with prices slashed everywhere, yesterday our PUC stooges gave our electric provider a raise!
A raise of $115,000,000 a year.
Was that because it costs less, LESS to make electricity now? So they should charge MORE?
Well yes, that, plus they wasted all that money on the wrong new meters.
Who made them king?

It should have been the other way around. The real worker-bees, the PUC staff, said rates should be cut. So did 148 cities full of ratepayers. Their lawyer called for a cutback of $175,000,000. State Rep Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, agreed.

Me, too. When you are a giga-mega-million-dollar utility company you do not get to have buyer's remorse. You do get to fire the buyer, maybe even the whole procurement department. And you do get to suck it up and go on. Take your lumps. Forgo obscene outrageous profits for a few quarters. A few years.

Because it's for ELEVEN years you want to tack a few cents on our bills each month to pay for YOUR mistake.
Sorry. I have all I can handle paying for my own mistakes.

PS. Dear Oncor, If I have a new, wrong meter that needs replacement, let me have it when you remove it. I bet I can sell it somewhere like China or Arkansas and get some of my money back. Do ya think y'all could do the same?

Get real.

40 years, Woodstock nostalgia

(image from a tutorial on how to use PhotoShop to alter colors)

That year, 1969, was my last summer in college, a couple months after I met my future husband. He joined a rock-and-roll band, and they had a house-band gig that summer in Fort Worth. I remember seeing a guy in the parking lot at my apartment complex in Austin shouting up at me, "Hey I'm going to Woodstock!" I wasn't; I was headed to Fort Worth.

We were 20, the perfect age for that Woodstock moment. Fairly innocent, still children, technically. Yes, boys and girls, the voting age was 21 then.

Both of us loved the 1930s era. The fashions, the cars, travel by ship, movies from then. He read Fitzgerald. I enjoyed Hemingway outside of class. That bygone era was so romantic.

Who could imagine feeling that way about our era? Not us at the time. And now it's happened.

So here's a link to a cheesy icon of the era. Tie-dye. A cheesy how-to video that's not really tie-dying.

I never wore tie-dye t-shirts back then. Too cheesy. I wear one now for nostalgia, because my son made it at Yearly Meeting 15 years ago.

Lord have mercy! Amazon has a 3-tape set of VHS videos, "Learn How to Tie Dye". At least it's not done by Martha.

Here's a how-to video a girl put up online, 17 minutes. Hope it's good. I'll see it next week when it finishes downloading on dial-up. Waiting for a part for my DSL. Being patient, like Job.

breakfast at Ikea

...leads to Baconhenge.
You'll see in a minute. I was all ready for some serious blogging today about universal healthcare (we need it, just do it), maybe short congrats to Justice Sotomayor (yay!! she's #111 of the Supremes). But no, instead I'm compelled to share this bit of fluff. Heavy fluff.

Today, first time we got to Ikea early enough for breakfast! Good, cheap, 2 bucks.
Scoop of scrambled eggs, fried potato cubes, bacon, French toast sticks.
When I got home I went straight to a search engine.
Looked up: "french toast sticks" calories

Bad? Sure. Over 100 cal per stick; three sticks on the plate. Ate 'em all. Fat calories? Mostly. Go for amazing nutritional details here and here. If you dare.

Then I looked for "french toast sticks" images. Here's the prize pic.

Baconhenge.

It came from a user on sports blog compendium SB*NATION who goes by mcboomofdoom
and has a passion for bacon,
Click his link above, scroll down for pic and caption. Plus more bacon stuff.
I guessed right. That glop the bacon-wrapped toast-stick pillars arise from is a fritatta.
Whatta guy, whatta thing, whatta guy-thing.

Turning 180 degrees from Baconhenge back to Ikea, check these vegetarian-friendly Ikea breakfast offerings, probably from Singapore or Shanghai. Whatever the .sg domain extension means. Just guessing.

After looking at the menu.

Thursday
	Mee Siam ($1.80) Bee hoon served with hard-boiled egg and tau pok, covered in a sweet and spicy borth.

	Chicken Char Siew Sou ($1.20/2pcs) Fried pastry filled with chicken char siew and topped with sesame seeds.

*Man Tou ($0.80/2 pcs)
Deep fried flour roll that is crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

Stop making fun of those names.
Stop snickering. I mean it.