On Economics

First things first, I never got around to publishing the last of my observations from my trip to the South West, so here it is.

On October 29 we drove from Santa Fe to Sedona Arizona. We stopped at the Meteor Crater. Although interesting, the $15 admission was insulting. The people we paid $30 (there were two of us) to did not put that crater there and its not like I pay to see trees or mountains. Anyway even a space nut like me was unimpressed, it is just a big hole in the ground out in the middle of nowhere, a good 10 km from I-40. I will say this though, the road from the interstate to the crater would be awesome for riding. Except bring lots of water.

Other than the crater the drive was very long and uneventful, thank goodness the speed limit in Arizona and New Mexico is 75mph, if it were 100km like it is back home I would have lost my mind.


And that's it. I should have taken some notes about my experiences in Sedona, but I was too busy with other things, like packing and getting ready to go home. One of these days I will try to remember Sedona, but for now, let me just say, if you are under the age of about sixty, don't go, you will feel too young. Sorry to the Sedona tourist board, but its true guys, I think Lesley and I were the only people in town who did not own a business or collecting social security.


Now I wanted to talk briefly about economics. Why? Because I give a damn, that's why!


Alright its no great secret, I am a dyed to the wool leftist pinko commie. Even so, I am actually not so leftist that I oppose balanced budgets, or modesty in all things government does. Which I suppose makes me a big yellow stripe middle of the road person, but whatever. The point is, while I don't much care for what our conservative government is doing most of the time, this time my rant is not just a pissed off Liberal, rather it is founded on the fact that the Tories are being, well frankly, a bunch of economic children.


Consider this, classical Keynesian economic theory tells us that during periods of prosperity governments should keep balanced budgets so that when it rains the government can flood the economy with money to keep things going until the metaphorical rain stops. That is what every single nation in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) is doing, they are spending like drunken sailors, even countries with budgets now over a trillion dollars (yes trillion, as in one followed by twelve zeros, that's $1,000,000,000,000 into the hole), well every nation is spending like crazy except one, Canada.


You know the funny thing, our Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, used to be a minister in the Eves government here in Ontario. They were the same sorry bunch who told us the budget was balanced going into an election, some how, six or eight weeks later it turned out there was a $6 billion budget deficit on a $100 billion dollar budget. Ooops! My favourite part, they were going to balance the books by selling stuff, highways, hospitals, roads, you name it. Well we are in a recession now property values are plunging, as if going against the grain of bajillions of economists was not bad enough what else is Minister Flaherty doing to balance the budget? Sell federal properties! Come to crazy Jim's buy an acre of land, a motivated seller must move this land by the end of Fiscal Year 2009!

I would like to propose a fictional measure of economic prosperity, lets call it monetary momentum. Suppose we take one dollar, and follow it, maybe it changes hands three times in one day, now suppose we track the number of transactions of every single dollar in an economy. Now obviously we cannot trace every dollar, but we can say the average number of transactions, the average size of transactions, this gives us the monetary velocity of an economy.

To compensate for inflation in the next bit, suppose we create a new constant, the cost of say, a McDonald's Big Mac, lets say instead of measuring using dollars we measure amount of money in terms of number of big Macs a person could buy. So for example while I will bet money changes hands very quickly in a place like Hatti, I will also bet you can't get too many Big Macs. Conversely, whereas money moves more slowly in the United States, there are an awful lot of Big Macs you could buy.

Now if we take the monetary velocity and multiply it by the amount of Big Macs in an economy, we have a very good indicator of the economic health of a nation. During periods of prosperity, this product (which I call the monetary momentum), velocity times Big Macs, should be very large. During periods of economic decline, naturally the monetary momentum shrinks. During the good times government should basically try to stay out of the way (yeah and I called myself a commie?) During the bad times what can government do? Print money? No good, sure in the short term you can buy more Big Macs but in the long term the value of money goes down, inflation, and you get less Big Macs for your dollar, hence overall monetary momentum shrinks. What else can government do? Remember there is no difference between borrowing money and simply printing more, because all modern paper money is nothing but government debt.

Put this way I think economics makes a lot more sense, at least it makes a lot more sense to me. Frankly it seems obvious, you cannot force people to spend faster, thus increasing velocity, you can only play with weight, that is number of Big Macs floating around. So you do just that, you float a wack of bonds, lower interest rates, dump cash into the economy and as money starts picking up velocity you slowly remove the money from circulation so that inflation remains under control. But as long as momentum is unacceptably low, you inject more Big Macs into your equation.

What did Jimbo do? He's keeping his Big Macs all for him and his buddy Steve. Great guys, go explain that one to an unemployed auto worker in Oshawa. Go piss away some money, please.

On Riding into the Wind

First of all, Happy American Thanksgiving! As a Canadian Thanksgiving is not really a big deal, a Monday off work, a big meal, that's about it. Of course for Americans Thanksgiving is a huge affair. Many people take Wednesday off to travel to be with family, then Friday is infamous "black Friday" when everyone buys their Christmas gifts, retailers favourite day of the year, although given the state of the economy Black Friday might be black for other reasons, or perhaps this year it should be called Red Friday?

Its rather annoying when Americans get the day off and we don't, so many vendors I depend on that are not returning my calls today, then I remembered when I woke a guy up in San Jose, hey it was 0900 Pacific Time, on a working day. His first words to me were, "happy Thanksgiving". Ooops!

Now I have to ask, how come no one else is voting in my latest survey? Surely we all have a favourite type of bike, heck even my arch nemesis George, rides a bike... no not the guy from TISC (I spelled the name correctly) I meant the unelected tongue tied President of the United States, he has a mountain bike he rides all over the ranch in Crawford.

I still wouldn't want to drink beer with the guy.

Now President Elect Obama, if he could come by... although I think I'd rather play chess with him or something as cerebral, although I strongly suspect he'd whip me in under 10 moves or something equally insane. Here is a thought, imagine trying to play poker against the guy who the Republican could not unsettle.

Anyway today on the ride to work, drivers were bad, of course, hardly need to say that. They were their usual oblivious ignorant selves. But what I wanted to say is what a headwind! Holy smokes the whole ride in was a hammer feast just to maintain what I am sure was not more than 26 or 27km/h. The only time, when I was not in the shelter of buildings, when the wind was bearable was when I got to draft off a Taxi. At least, assuming the wind has not changed directions, I should fly home tonight.

I am thinking I'd like to write a SF (Science Fiction) novel. I have some ideas for what I'd like to write about, I am just not sure if I have the self discipline to actually write the whole thing beginning to end, nor do I believe the characters I have dreamed up are not totally cliched, well a few are not cliched, they just aren't believable. And really who would read a novel about a dystopic future police investigation of a murder? Like that one hasn't been played out a bajillion times before.

On Domain Name Service

Years ago, when I was a University co-op (alright I feel old now), I worked for a time at a company that was in the Insurance industry. One guy, an actuary, had a trade magazine at his desk, yes believe it or not there are in fact trade magazines for actuaries. Now I know most of you are probably thinking "what does an actuary do?" The truth is actuarial science is probably the most straightforward branch of mathematics, you start by observing some statistical trend, life expectancies, number of car crashes per hundred thousand drivers, number of house fires per million homes, etc, then you tell an insurance company how much they should charge for a particular policy. Sound boring? Well from what I hear, it is. Anyway this actuary has a trade magazine and as I was waiting to talk to him about his computer I read the article that the magazine was opened to.

The article was written by another actuary who was pleased as punch that he was able to help his neighbour with a professional problem, specifically the neighbour wanted to know if he should keep his whole life insurance policy or go term life. (If you don't know the difference between whole and term life, don't worry about, you will find out, sooner, much sooner, than anyone really ought to.)

I do not have the problem of having the useless profession on my block. Short of a TEOTWAWKI event (A Y2K expression, The End Of The World As We Know It), I suspect neighbours, friends, family, will always be knocking on the computer guy's door asking for help with their wireless or their email, or word processing, or... & cetra.

I should have listened to my mother and become a doctor. At least then when I have an ache or pain I wouldn't have to weigh the cost of waiting (always far too long) against the potential benefit of actually seeing the doctor.

Anyway much as I'd like to, on further reflection I realise I really cannot go into specifics here, but suffice it to say a friend of mine was having DNS issues and so for the first time I looked into registering a domain name for someone other than my employer. Holy smokes, domain names are cheap! For the princely sum of $10 you too can own: EverythingIEverWantedToKnowAboutLifeInsuranceButWasAfraidToAsk.com.

Only try managing that domain once you buy it. Registrars have it in for us! What a convoluted ugly, and I do mean ugly process. Sure you can pay with a personal credit card, but then if you do that you need to supply the home address. You can specify that the address should be hidden but what if you are doing your friend or organziation a favour? What if you want their address to show? So for example, suppose the Prime Minister of Canada started a Kitten Lovers club. So maybe Mrs. Harper decided to register primekittens.com. Only instead of the home address being say 24 Sussex Drive, she wanted it to be 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC (I hope the Obama family's new Puppies get along with cats).

So Mrs. Harper (The Prime Minister's wife) goes to some Registrar and fills in the information, Lauren Harper, 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa ON, K1A 0A3, and submits this to the registrar. Now of course anyone who wants to, can easily find out where the Prime Minister of Canada lives, but until I was able to modify the DNS record almost 24 hours after I set the record up anyone who did a whois against the record I created could see my home address. Even better than that, once I did start to configure things I left certain fields empty, my friend did not have a mail server, so no MX record. What does the Registrar do? They add an MX record for their own mail server. Guys, if I order a corned beef sandwich on rye, please do not serve me a chocolate cake because I did not bother to order desert, assume if I did not order desert I don't want any!

I guess the point of this whole post is, stop assuming I am incompetent, this assumption is really starting to frustrate me. I miss the glory days when all you needed to blow the system away was rm -rf * and talk of email worms (viruses) were all fiction.

On Laws

First order of business, Sultan Ahmed, the Taxi driver who it appears crashed the Taxi he was driving into Chris Kasztelewicz (the cyclist who lost his leg when Ahmed crashed his taxi) has been charged, according to the Globe and Mail with six different criminal charges, although only five are listed:

1. criminal negligence causing bodily harm
2. dangerous operation of a vehicle causing bodily harm
3. failing to stop at the scene of an accident
4. attempted obstruction of justice
5. aggravated assault

I am no lawyer, but I do believe that items: 1., 4., and 5. all come with some pretty significant jail time. Which to be frank is a relief. The way cops are with Taxi drivers I almost expected them to give this guy a pat on the back and then say, better luck next time.

On doing further research I found out a big one, Ahmed is also being charged with assault with a weapon, his car. Naturally that sort of charge, if found guilty comes with very significant jail time. In addition, we should expect that Kasztelewicz will take civil action against not only Ahmed, but probably Beck Taxi as well as any number of other entities. It is pretty much a sure thing that Ahmed will never drive again, nor will he ever be able to pay off all the money he is going to owe Kasztelewicz. The sad part is, I suspect no amount of money is going to truly compensate Kasztelewicz for the loss of ability, namely, Kasztelewicz can never ride a bike again. Well he can, but Kasztelewicz, like me, likes road bikes and liked to ride fast, and with one working leg, well riding fast is not going to happen anymore, and unless he drags around a prosthetic leg or training wheels how would he balance when he hits a red light?

The whole story is tragic. Honestly I don't care that Ahmed is a father with two children and a wife to feed, we have a social safety net for that. What pisses me off was the attitude that I will bet Ahmed had going into the argument, that no matter what, by virtue of the fact that Ahmed was in a car and Kasztelewicz was on a bike, Ahmed is in the right!

Gladiators in the Colosseum used to face the emperor before the battle and say: "We who are about to die salute you!"

Car drivers everywhere: we who ride among you, salute you! (Only it is a one fingered salute.)

Senatus Populusque ex Machina!

The signature of the Roman government was SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus) which means, The Senate and the People of Rome. Well I have replaced the People of Rome with People from the Machine. So we have: The Senate and the People from the Machine! Since all of us plebeian non-motorists don't matter, well maybe recent events will change some opinions.

On things to do in the winter

Lesley and I went skiing. Well I went skiing, Lesley went snowboarding. She very much wants to be a skater type person I think, not inline speed, but skateboard, snowboard, sort of like Avril Lavigne's 'Sk8ter Boi'. I've got to admit I admire the persistence, especially since Lesley has had no formal instruction in boarding. (This may come as the greatest non-shocker to those who know me, but I have never been, nor am I interested in, snow boarding. I used to do a lot of downhill skiing, heck I was pretty good at one time, but other things, lifeguarding in particular, started to take up much of my time.)

Actually thinking back to my downhill days, it was the mid 90's when I stopped, I remember the winter of 1994/'95, that was a warm winter, heck there was no snow that year. I remember riding to the pool at... lets see if I can still spell this one correctly, the Joseph J. Piccininni Community Centre... and YES, I got all the I's and N's right! You want more irony, I rode the same white Coppi to J.J.P. - don't use that name on the phone, sometimes Joseph's son would call and would he give the casual staff hell if they dared answer "JJP how can I help you?" - back in '94 that I rode to work last week. Only Christmas of 1994 there was NO snow, none, nadda, bubbkis. By the March break of 1995 I remember sitting out on the front porch in shorts and a T-shirt doing my required reading for English. No wonder I gave up skiing, how the hell do you ski in weather like that?

Hard to believe but that was 14 years ago!

On the way to the hills today on the radio they told us it was 45 years ago that JFK was shot. And this July marks 40 years since Apollo 11.

A lot of major events of the 60's seem to mark significant anniversaries this year, well alright two... no three, if we use 2008 as a starting point, sadly they are are assassinations of decent people, April was 40 years for MLK, RFK was 40 years ago this past June, then in November it was 45 years from JFK. I guess every year ending with three and eight is going to be that way.

Ooooh, Christmas marks the 40'th of Apollo VIII the first maned flight to the moon. Course it was the same year as MLK and RFK so yeah of course! (It is also the anniversary of the Tet offensive.)

Maybe I should be living in the 1960s? Actually what I ought to do is go do a PhD in American History, I would have a lot of fun doing that. Except, really, who needs an expert on the Johnson Administration?

There was something remarkable about the '60s, a period when the World went ahead and just turned itself inside out and upside down, then decided, nah that sucks, and the same people who said make love not war turned out to be the greedy bastards who would run up the debt, undo reasonable banking laws, and create our current economic disaster. (No I am not going to cite all my sources and write an entire essay on why the Baby Boomers are responsible for the sub-prime implosion, I am just going to point my finger at my parents generation and say, all your fault and walk away!) Besides blaming Baby Boomers is so easy, I mean its not like finding one is difficult, and really besides The Beatles, what have the Boomers given us that has been net good? Bill Clinton? Forget it, any good he did was offset by the Boomer George W. Bush. Stephen Harper? (Uhm, the only Boomer PM we've had for more than six months and anyone tells me he was any good... oh yeah, Brian Mulroney, an outstanding PM! For American business.) What about the arts? Well name a Baby Boomer artist? And I am excluding Margaret Atwood because while I appreciate she has a lot of talent, I just don't like her writing style, sorry Margaret. (Yes I am being arbitrary, but it's my blog I'll do as I damned well please!)

You know who else is a baby boomer? Virtually every single driver who thinks cyclists should get off the road because cars are GOD!

I win, baby boomers lets get this count up already, go smoke another dobbie!

I am mean aren't I? Oh well, when it comes to me and my ride, it seems, either they kill me, or I wish horrible things on them, but I cannot wait for a generation to emerge that has a better attitude towards cyclists. Sadly I have yet to see that generation come out of the oven.

How on Earth did I get from things to do in the winter to wishing ill on something like 70 million souls? Oh that's right, I was riding home from work in the cold yesterday and a car driver nearly killed me, then when he wanted to yell obscenities at me, rather than roll down his window and properly yell them, he mouthed the words to me, it was too cold to roll his window. (Well I'm sorry it's too cold, maybe think about how cold I am, and maybe think... hmmm, I'll bet nearly running this guy over is going to make him even more uncomfortable.)

[Insert standard angry rants against cars and car drivers right here!] Oh and Lesley was telling me she thinks all Taxi drivers should have their licence suspended, I think that's a great idea, lets start a petition, call the city licensing board, lets put a stop to Taxi insanity in Toronto!

Once Taxi drivers start acting sane I will offer free lessons on how to nail jelly to the ceiling. (Read: "don't hold your breath".)

On Riding in the Winter

What a frightful experience riding in the slush is. Don't get me wrong, it sure beats walking, or taking the Queen Street car, but damn, everything, and I do mean everything was muddy and wet when I got into the office. I spent about an hour just trying to get the worst of the mud out of my clothing. I guess I have at least learned one valuable lesson, I need a fender on my bike, that is not really something I have a lot of latitude on, if I don't arrest the mud before it nails me in the backside I am going to get sick. Arrrrrrgh, more money!

So by now if you have not heard the story of the cyclist who lost his leg near CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, formerly the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, or as us ex-lifeguards from Trinity Pool called it, the place where all the crazies come from) you've been lucky. The story is, although most of the facts are still not available, the cyclist is in and out of surgery, there may or may not have been a robbery, there was a shouting argument (people who live on the street were woken up by it in the early hours of Friday morning) a cab driver then backed his automobile into a cyclist and rammed him between a poll (presumably a telephone or hydro poll?) and the cab. The witnesses said they heard the sound of bone crunching then screaming, by the time they got out of bed the cyclist was in a pool of his own blood on the ground and his leg barely attached. (It was later amputated.)

Alright, I honestly tried really hard to tidy that story up and get rid of the really gruesome details but even re-reading my own writing makes my skin crawl.

There seems to be an attitude among people in our culture that driving is a right, that car drivers should have an unobstructed access to the road, that cyclists and pedestrians are second class and that cars are borderline deities. Do we need to list all the faults with cars? Seems so:

1. Automobiles are the ultimate terrorists, killing more civilians and non-civilians in North America every single year than anything else, including heart attacks and Al-Quedea.
2. Automobiles are a HUGE emitter of green house gases.
3. Automobiles are single biggest users of oil, a resource that I have documented over and over again as being in frantically short supply despite the recent drop in oil. (Just wait until the economy picks up, you think $1.50/L was bad, everybody has stopped developing new fields since the price drop.)
4. Use of oil enriches the likes of Al-Queda because more oil use means more demand, more demand means higher prices, higher prices means more money to the Saudis who give some of it to Osama and friends.
5. Automobiles promote obesity and laziness.

I am sure there are even more wonderfully bad things to say about cars. Not to say that the people who build cars at GM or Ford are bad, I am sure they are decent hard working souls, just like me. But somehow, one hundred fifty years ago humanity made do without cars and did alright, why do we need cars now? This whole expectation that driving is a right passed on from God and Henry Ford on down to us mortals is such an unhealthy attitude. I really don't know what to do? I'm not saying that cycling is a right and driving is not. Both are privileges, but at least cyclists are a lot less likely to kill anyone and besides when I eat too many beans for dinner, I am pretty sure I am not a big emitter of noxious gasses when I saddle up.

On Clipping In

Let this blog post forever serve as an advert for the greatest concept in cycling... alright maybe it's not that special but holy smokes does clipping in help. I am sure I have expressed my distaste for the old steel frame Coppi here somewhere. That bike felt slow, it felt rickety, it felt bumpy.

Now to be fair those old friction down-tube shifters were, and are brutal, getting in a gear so that the cogs don't rub and make funny noises is damned difficult, reaching down to change gears is a pain and getting into the right gear is trying at best. The steel frame is no treat either on Toronto's pothole feast that us locals often confuse with roads. The front wheel isn't true either, this is a new thing, actually it is not that the wheel is untrue, it has a flat spot and being that up until now I haven't cared enough, I was not about to piss away a hundred bucks buying a new rim.

Then something changed. My friend from out of town brought in a brand new shiny pair of clip in pedals that I put on Erin. I took the old pedals off and put them on the Coppi and suddenly the Coppi went from an unwieldy heavy old clunker into a steal frame rocket! What a world of difference clipping in makes. You would think I would have noticed that earlier, but the thing is my Roubaix, be it the 2006 stock Specialized Roubaix I bought at the bike show (Amy) or my custom build (Erin) were both clip in from the first kilometer. I always figured the Coppi was obsolete and therefore slower (shades of a computer guy there I guess) I did not realise sure the technology is not so great, but on a level surface the extra weight on the Coppi really is not that big a thing. Makes me think, save my good bike for the group rides and use the Coppi for commuting year round. Sure I love riding on Erin or heck any bike with STI shifters and a carbon frame, but risk damaging a good bike just for a 7km ride to the office? Suddenly the Coppi seems like a good way to get around.

Ironic, I saw the Coppi the exact same way back in 1994 and '95, before and just after I got my licence. Difference is now I hate driving and get jealous of cyclists when I do drive, back then I got jealous of people in their cars.

There should be a law, people should have to bike to work at least once a week year round. It would be good for their health, good for their stress, reduce fossil fuel emissions and traffic, make car drivers more considerate of cyclists and of course improve bike access. (Best of all, on a bike I'd be one of the fastest vehicles on the road... oh wait a second, during rush hour I already am!)

On Conversations with an American

A vendor I work with from time to time is from one of the blood red states of the west. I think Idaho or maybe Wyoming. Anyway we recently had a little email exchange, she knows I am a dyed to wool leftist pinko commie.

From: Sherri
Sent: October-14-08 12:58 PM
To: Michael
Subject: US Political Race

Hi Michael,
Hope things are well. Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?
With things heating up and just 3 weeks to go before Americans head to the polls...I was curious to know your thoughts on the whole race and the 2 candidates!
Sherri

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Michael
Sent: October 14, 2008 1:21 PM
To: Sherri
Subject: RE: US Political Race

One of my wife's co-workers is an Ex-pat from Tennessee. He was going to vote for Clinton before the primaries, but just confided to someone else that he voted for McCain in the advance poll because McCain's a white guy.

(That other person repeated that conversation to my wife.)

Here is what McCain has going for him:

1. He's white
2. He's probably got more of the K street lobby behind him than George Walker Bush
3. He is willing to put politics before nation every time, a-la Sarah Palin.
4. His foreign policy is not incompetent, it is not dangerous, it is dangerously incompetent!
5. He isn't an economist (he said that himself)
6. He is prone to moments of anger and spews venom that could kill a moose faster than his running mate.

There aren't two candidates, there is one candidate and a scary old guy who came in, what last? or second to last? in his class at Annapolis. (Sorry but I want the most powerful person in the world to have an intellect and curiosity, not make sudden brash decisions based on hairs on the back of their neck or whatever else.) Is it too much to ask that POTUS be inspiring and commanding, while intelligent? Both Roosevelt's had it, Truman had it, Ike lacked the inspiring part but at least he had the command and intellect down, Kennedy did it, I didn't much like him but Regan gave the appearance of doing it, even Clinton in a pinch could pull it off. McCain, could have but something happened around 2006, he took the low road, I hope enough people see that in 21 days.

Michael

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Sherri
Sent: November-12-08 3:51 PM
To: Michael
Subject: RE: US Political Race

Hi Michael,

So I assume you are celebrating Obama's victory?

Sherri

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Michael
Sent: November 13, 2008 9:54 AM
To: Sherri
Subject: RE: US Political Race

To my way of thinking this isn't just President Elect Obama's victory, nor is it a victory for just liberals or Democrats. It is a victory not just for all American's but for all people, everywhere. The World needs a strong vibrant United States open to new ideas and new people. (That is what made the country great in the 20'th century that is what will allow her to achieve new heights this century.) The alternative is something between what happened to Great Britain after World War Two or worse, Rome in 410 CE.

Clichéd? Yes, but there's a lot of truth in clichés.

Michael

On Santa Fe, Taos and Los Alamos

Here are my notes recorded while in New Mexico and Arizona. I will probably put more 'travel log' style stuff in later, but for now here are my thoughts, clearly heavily influnced by a museum devoted to The Bomb.

Tuesday October 29 we went to Taos and Los Alamos. What a contrast. First, if you ever go to Santa Fe, drive the scenic road to Taos - despite claims to the contrary there are very few bikable roads here - well all roads are bikable, but you come awful close to traffic. Anyway the drive to Taos requires numerous stops to take pictures, pack an extra battery and memory card for your camera, or if you are old school like me, another roll of film. The vistas are... Amazing, spectacular. As the second man to walk on the moon, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin said: "Magnificent Desolation".

In Taos we went to the Pueblo, besides paying an awful lot to see people live in appalling squalor, I cannot say it was worth it. Truth be told, drive to Taos then turn around, unless you came to go skiing, although if that is the case the scenic road is probably rather dangerous.

On the way back to Santa Fe we stopped in Los Alamos. Now apparently there is a beautiful national park nearby but we did not have time to see it. I will say the groceries in Los Alamos are a lot cheaper than Santa Fe, so is gasoline. Of course I did not want to go to Los Alamos for the gas and groceries. Some odd things noticed, Los Alamos is twinned with Sarov Russia, guess what they did in Sarov. The Los Alamos National Laboratory gets $2billion per year in funding and employs 11,000 people, the population of Los Alamos is about 25,000, so almost half the town is employed at the lab. Oh and the apples are really REALLY HUGE, maybe radiation? ;-) (The apples were grown in Washington State.)

We went to the science museum. And the first thing I saw were bomb cases, obviously they don't have any real bombs in a public museum. Now I just want to attribute a source here, Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer prize winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and "Dark Sun, The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb" called the actual conical cases that would freight the bombs in during the re-entry, from their ballistic arc to their targets, dunce caps. They look like dunce caps, even about the same size. Nations behaved like dunces when they built these horrible things, well they had a real dunce cap at the museum. Standing in front of that MK-21 war head was frightening, even if it was a mockup.

Here is a dirty little known fact about the cold war, and is actually still true. If a missile launch was detected, and it would be, sometimes launches that never happened were detected, a flock of seagulls fooled one monitoring team. But if a launch was detected, the other side would return fire before the missile had even cleared the atmosphere. Well the first side would see multiple "birds" in the air (the response to the first missile) and they would fire everything, so the other guys, now seeing hundreds of launches would "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war". Before the first missile, maybe just a communications or weather satellite who's launch was not properly communicated had even achieved burn out, 3 minutes after engines start, several thousand nuclear weapons, with no abort, or undo, are in the air no more than 28 minutes from their destination, New York or Leningrad, Toronto or Warsaw.

I had hoped the museum would highlight the work and science of the great physicists who worked on the bomb during the war. Maybe a history of physics from Newton to Einstein. Instead too much effort was spent glorifying these awful things and the "good work" done at The Lab. Not to say that the building of satellites that will study the weather, or the moons of Neptune are at all a bad thing and that should be explained there. If Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship is really required then fine. But do 12 year old children who come to the museum need to learn about what great work is done to ensure that the bombs will still explode one hundred years from now? The Bomb cannot be uninvented, but the bombs can be unbuilt and they should be unbuilt, we don't need them and the existence of a US Nuclear Stockpile gives justification to other nations to build their own bombs.

On the Sunday ride and a silly ad

I still have more to post about the trip to the South West but I have to buy groceries. (Tomorrow is an Escape the Don ride and I have nothing to eat after.) Anyway Sunday did a nice little 100km ride. There was a guy in the group with a fancy Italian bike, (now I do not want to get too specific for a whole bunch of reasons) but for all the money he blew on the wheels, it don't matter if the engine ain't no good! (Yeah he was that pathetic, but hopefully he'll come to more rides and get better.) There is an important moral here, if you have a really impressive bike... maybe I better trade Erin in for a tricycle. Actually what blew me away was when the guy said he did the donut ride well if this guy did the donut I am gonna do the RAAM.

Oh and check out the advert, if it's still there, 'free Obama videos (at some website)'. Come on guys you honestly think my readers live in a cave or something? You never heard of Youtube.com, for heavens sakes I don't exactly think the Obama people want his speeches to go unnoticed by anyone who meets the following criterion:

1. are you a human being?
2. do you have a pulse? - or -
3. are you on life support?

On further thought I suspect if you are a sentient from the planet Zircon 5 the Obama people still want you to learn about the President Elect, so item one is sort of a nice to have, not really required.

Anyway here is what I did on Sunday morning.

20081109 BCC Sunday Ride

http://www.bikely.com/

On journeys in the South West and recent rides

Much as I would like to continue to romanticize about the Obama administration the fact is George Walker Bush is still the President, for a few more months and I doubt there is even a short list for the new Attorney General or Secretary of State. So in the meantime I went for a ride, you can see the high resolution route we took here, or below.

20081106-EscapeTheDon

http://www.bikely.com/

I was, most of the time, able to keep up with Laurie and Thi, but that was no easy task. Still I believe I am improving. (It probably helps that I made sure to stop eating three hours before the ride and consume lots of Endurox as the ride progressed. Just keep taking steady sips at every red light, still having read the ingredients on Endurox, I am thinking I ought to change my energy powder.) As Dan did not come with there are no images from the ride.

Speaking of rides, below is a summary of events surround El Paso and the Trip to Santa Fe.

The drive to El Paso, on Sunday October 27 was largely uneventful, but it was long. The road at times was straight for miles and miles. A rope for steering and cruse control is really all that is needed most of the time out here.

Lesley printed something from Wikipedia or Wikitravel that said downtown El Paso was a great place to go for a walk. What a lie, downtown El Paso was shuttered and depressed, what people there were looked like they were ready to call it quits with life or a life of non-violence. We hightailed out of downtown and got barbecue ribs at a wonderful little restaurant called The Rib Hut, still it seems awfully wasteful to go to Texas just for the ribs, which I would say were no better than the ribs at Sticky Lips in Rochester. (Of course if I lived in El Paso, I suspect I'd be eating at The Rib Hut very often.)


After dinner we drove through some high roads that over look the town. It is very pretty at night, lit up like a big Christmas tree, but the rental car does not corner or accelerate well so it was a little... Distressing for me as I had to drive the thing.

Monday, the 28th, as the stock market found ever new lows to sink to, we drove to Santa Fe with a stop for lunch in Albuquerque. I had a dry burrito, well a fraction of it, it was really unpleasant, I got it as takeout, sadly, or I'd have demanded a refund.
We arrived at Santa Fe (about 7000 feet up) in the later part of the afternoon. Santa Fe is a delightful if exceedingly expensive town. During the day there were many people out and about and we even walked to a supermarket where we bought enough food to make a couple dinners and lunches.

After dinner we made the mistake, I made the mistake, of deciding to go for a walk. Santa Fe is a typical American city this way, nobody walks outside at night. Americans reclaim your streets, you know you pay all these taxes to build sidewalks, and never use them, but a nice walk is a good way to burn off dinner and meet the neighbours, if they walk as well.

On American Rhetoric

I am giving a tip of my hat to the website American Rhetoric where I dug up the following speeches. I am still so moved by events this past Tuesday that posting more about my recent vacation just seems so small and unimportant. (I will post that stuff later.) The men who delivered these speeches are much smarter and more gifted with words than I am, reading, or listening to what they said is very much a better use of anyone's time than reading my own comparatively elementary writing (as if comparing my writing is not an insult to these titans of the English language).


The following is the text of a speach delievered on the steps of the Lincoln memorial by Martin Luther King in the summer of 1963. A video of MLK making the speech can be watched here.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.


But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.


In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."


But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.


We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.


It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.


But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.


The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.


We cannot walk alone.


And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.


We cannot turn back.


There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹


I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.


And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.


I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.


I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.


I have a dream today!


I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.


I have a dream today!


I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."


This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.


With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.


And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:


My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.


Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,


From every mountainside, let freedom ring!


And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.


And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.


Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.


Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.


Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.


Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.


But not only that:


Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.


Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.


Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.


From every mountainside, let freedom ring.


And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:


Free at last! Free at last!


Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

We are not there yet, but this guy gives a pretty good talk to, see how it takes you to identify the speaker just from their words.

Hello, Chicago.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled -- Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America!

It's the answer that -- that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain. Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign, and he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they've achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years, the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next First Lady: Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House. And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother's watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and I know that my debt to them is beyond measure. To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters -- thank you so much for the support that you've given me. I am grateful to them.

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe -- the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America. To my chief strategist David Axelrod -- who's been a partner with me every step of the way. To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics -- you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give 5 dollars and 10 dollars and 20 dollars to the cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy, who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep. It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth. This is your victory.

And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime: two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education. There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President. And we know the government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand. What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.


This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a Party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity. Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours: "We are not enemies but friends...." "Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."¹

And to those Americans who -- whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your President, too.
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
To those -- To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we've proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.


She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.


At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot: Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose: Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved: Yes we can.


She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "we shall overcome": Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.


And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change: Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see?

What progress will we have made?


This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time, to put our people
back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Thank you.

God bless you.

And may God bless the United States of America.

Text and video of President Elect Barack Obama's speech can be read or watched here.

Yippeeeee!!!!

I cannot believe what happened. Yes I knew polls were predicting it. At some level it was expected, but expecting something intellectually and seeing it actually happen are two different things. The most amazing spectacularly wonderful thing about The United States is the American people's ability to amaze and delight me just when I was beginning to believe that Chalmers Johnson was right, that the days of democracy in America were over the American people have once again shown the World they have not given up on their experiment in democracy. For the first time in a long time I wish I were American, I am so excited for the future, bravo America!

Yes we can!

And don't forget, re-elect Obama in 2012, for four more years! (Start the campaign early.)

On Tuscon

Yesterday, Saturday October 26 we drove to Tuscon. Before leaving Phoenix we went to a Safeway, bought some prepared chicken wings, apples, carrots, iced tea etc. On the way we stopped at Casa Grande, an old Indian ruin about 50km south of Phoenix. The ruin was in pretty bad shape but it was very nice to get off the interstate and take a side road. We even pulled over and had a close look at the cactus. They were huge, much taller than me. The sound of gravel crunching under foot was soothing.

As for Tuscon itself, a thoroughly forgettable experience. The town is profoundly poor, as we drove south I remarked that one area made the worst parts of Scarborough look good. You may think the Golden Mile is in bad shape, but Tuscon is just plain depressing. To top things off it was Home Coming for the University of Arizona Wild Cats, can you say "Holy drunken college students batman".

We did stop for dinner at an American-Italian restaurant. I have eaten better but the ambiance, as well as eating outside in late October was very pleasant.

According to the travel guides there is a lot of drunk driving around these parts and there are all kinds or warnings regarding imprisonment for DUI on the road signs. I can understand, everything is so spread out and roads so straight it is difficult to stay focused. That said, people drink too much here and don't pay attention, in Tuscon a pedestrian walked right in front of me with a baby without looking, if I was not alert he would be pushing up the daises. Maybe that's why people vote Republican? They don't even realize how bad those guys are because the people would rather be drinking?

On Going to the South West

I wrote quite a bit, and Lesley took many images (that sounds wrong, she shot many images? Used to be so easy, Lesley took lots of photos, but they are not photos, no film was exposed) during the trip. I am going to break my posts up and publish them over the next couple days to reduce my spell checker's load. :) Later I will link to the images, I have to upload them somewhere first.

Today, Friday October 24, Lesley and I drove to Buffalo to fly to Phoenix. Yes we could have flown from Pearson in Toronto, but that would have cost an awful lot more. When we got to Buffalo I stopped in a bike store to price out some parts, with the drop in the value of the Canadian dollar it just is not worth it to buy things abroad, for the time being.

It is ironic, the structure of the Canadian economy, at a macro level, the relative health of our Federal budget, by rights the loony should not be in the cess pit against the green back. When you contrast say Kitchener Waterloo with Buffalo (two municipalities of comparable size) it is agonizingly clear, the health of Western New York's economy, would be in medical terms... Forget medical terms, it is a disaster, that is all there is to it, Buffalo, Rochester are both in terrible shape.

Well we got to the airport where things are overpriced, but at least there is a shuttle from the long term parking lot to the gate. A bus driver, there were several waiting and ready to roll, took just the two of (can you say "holy waste of diesel fuel batman"?) to the airport terminal. When he asked where we were going I joked that we were going to Arizona where I would put up some Obama bumper stickers. Well by the time got the joke he was already explaining that besides the fact the he hated both candidates, as a dual citizen of Ireland and the US depending on the outcome of the election he would either wait and see or pack things in right away. I didn't have the heart to tell him that by Irish standards Obama is a fascist. (I figure the driver was conservative based on the fact that he is in America now after eight years of the Bush Administration's shenanigans.)

At the dilapidated airport I thought about my encounter with a guy who believes in John McCain, there were lots of soldiers around, security screen was slow and ineffective (as well as dehumanizing). Budget projections for the coming fiscal year feature a debt a hundred times the most pessimistic numbers for Canada, ($10 billion in Canada and $1 trillion in the US). I got to thinking, maybe a little collapse would be good for America and the World. Such a collapse might be the only way to shut the right wing nutjobs up, as an unflattering reduction in the stature of their nation might inject some humility into the national psyche. That loss of stature would probably upset me more than them, but it is time for the United States to roll back, roll back her military, her bloated budget, her unhealthy love of credit, her imperial might, which so few American know or understand, yet is so hated everywhere outside the United States.

We arrived at the Barry M. Goldwater terminal of the Sky Harbor Airport to a wave of heat, Phoenix gets really hot. Here is a random thought, according to Bill Bryson in the book Mother Tongue, Goldwater is a medieval term for piss.