the next election...

It was natural, in my view, to turn immediately from the 2006 election and start thinking of the 2008 Presidential cycle. After the Historic Victory, there was scattered commentary along the lines of, ooh, bet all those political junkies are going to be jonesing now that there won't be anything more to read.

Ha! I said at the time. There were still elections undecided across the country.

In fact, we're _still_ waiting on the outcome of Franken v. Coleman. And lo, what yonder does a political junkie see, beyond the retreats to rebrand the GOP, the retirement announcements of septuagenarian Republican Senators and so forth?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/us/politics/17web-hulse.html?hp

An article in the NYT handicapping the 2010 midterm elections. Not well, mind you, but they're doing it.

Ha! I say. Ha!

And I still read 538 almost every day, because I llllluuuuuurrrrvv Nate.

just so you know, Shinn beats Piaget

Shinn, PhD author of _Biography of a Baby_:

http://ahp.apps01.yorku.ca/?p=456

predates Jean Piaget's work (presumably -- he was born about 4 years before Shinn's book was published).

I mention this because the NYT, predictably, acts like scientist parents studying their kids is somehow new:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/science/18kids.html?hp

Of course, Darwin beats the rest anyway. Also, Darwin wrote a monograph of worms.

DIY and the Economy

Lately, there's been a lot of coverage on how to deal with the effects of the downturn -- cutting back, financial fire drills (I'm still toying with the idea of blogging about that guy, but it's just so discouraging to even think about listing everything wrong with that strategy in a way that might be useful to the kind of customer he's aiming his services at)... and dying your hair at home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/business/17services.html

Ya gotta love city dwellers -- especially New Yorkers -- trying to engage in a little DIY. When the guy at DaddyTypes does it, it involves a multi-year project creating a sweet modernist crib (a crib for a human child, not a manger and not a residence). When it's folk in and around the city trying to scrimp and save, it's quite hilarious. Dad's cutting the kids hair (wait, we do that). Mom baking the cookies (wait, we do that, too -- well, I make the waffles and the blonde brownies for the freezer; Papa usually makes cookies on those rare occasions we have them). We do have child care, but then again, I'm with the wee one pretty much all the time, so the nanny thing is sort of a wash.

Compare, tho, the at-home hair dye experimentation with my friend K.'s decades ago decision to refrain from cosmetics because they cost way too much money and she just couldn't see the point in it.

As for the gay guy who needed help folding fitted sheets, hell, I just don't bother. Folding fitted sheets is a roaring pain in the ass. It either goes into the linen closet a haphazard ball, or back onto the mattress from whence it came. And we don't make the beds around here either because we are heathens. It _was_ interesting to hear that people were actually doing their own oil changes and bringing the waste oil in.

Because this is about city dwellers, there is mention of landscape services but, mysteriously, nothing about snow removal. People in our town who wouldn't dream of hiring a housekeeper will, nevertheless, hire someone to remove the snow from their long driveway after each storm. We do not. I replaced R.'s snowblower a year or two ago, and we have shovels. I am currently training the tyke to participate in moving the white stuff around. We also have people mow the expanse of green stuff, and clean up the leaves in the fall so that R. is available to spend time with the kiddies.

I want a dog. R. does not. When I contemplate all the services one needs to provide or hire for a dog, I keep thinking this is an argument I do not need to have.

Vicki Robin is quoted toward the end of the article, saying something my father said a decade or more ago.

Where the Real Journalists Hang Out: not in this country

http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090116.wcokedrosky16/BNStory/crashandrecovery/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

I question that link.

Anyway, after reading an entertaining story in another paper online about how to save hundreds of pounds a year by making your own mature cheddar and pickle sandwich at home instead of buying it at Asda, and bringing your own Tetley's tea bag and milk, same, I ran across this breathtakingly concise and insightful bit of commentary on the unusual phenomenon of a positive savings rate in the US and what it means for the world economy.

Everyone else just says, wow, great for us as individuals, not so great for the economy. This article runs down the numbers. My fave quote so far:

"At a 3-per-cent savings rate, the United States will see $3.8-trillion showing up next year in the banking system just from domestic savers. At 7 per cent, almost $9-trillion will come rushing in as part of the savings tsunami. It is a fire hose of money pointed at the banks, and it's just beginning."

ETA: The commenters think the numbers are off by an order of magnitude.