The Lone Elm

A Real Winter

In the depths of winter I finally learned
there was in me an invincible summer.

by Albert Camus

This quote from Camus pretty well sums it up.  But for summer, why would we put up with such an intense and difficult experience?  However, there is plenty to enjoy about a real winter.  The Dutch are thrilled that they can again skate on the canals, according to a story in the International Herald Tribune.  However, many skaters are ending up in the emergency room with fractures, sprains and other injuries!  But being able to get out and skate for the first time in 12 years must be thrilling.  See also this lovely blog entry and photos at Letters Home  I also love this photo with the windmills in the background at Macleans.ca. 

Here in Southern NH we are stuck in the deep freeze.  Night time temps around zero, or even lower, daytime in the teens.  Pretty brutal.  We are expecting a good amount of snow tonight and tomorrow.  We will need to get out and have fun in it!  I will also spend time studying my seed catalogues in anticipation of Spring.

Congress is Packing a Barrel of Pork

I woke up this morning to hear on NPR Nancy Pelosi lauding the hard work that the House appropriation committee members have put in to developing the massive $850 stimulus bill. It is hard when you are trying to accommodate the dearest wishes of hundreds of Democratic congressmen and probably some Republican ones to boot.  This bill is a melange of something for everyone, and awesome in its size and scope -- tax cuts for the select groups of individuals, tax credits, grants to local governments, spending aid ....  Amanda Carpenter at TownHall has a shopping list of some of the items that have been tossed into this salad.  The amounts of money tagged and the variety of topics is staggering.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the emphasis is on government spending as being "the best and fastest way to create jobs."  Sorry, but that is just not credible.    Congress wants to direct the spending because they can't be sure that the private sector or individuals will spend the money the "right" way - we might save it or use it to pay down debt, which don't create jobs, but might get us out of this economic slump a little faster.  In addition, all economists know that government spending is one of the least efficient ways to pump money into the economy.  For goodness sake, why can't they just figure out a dollar value of stimulus, and send us all checks?