They will slather lipstick, eyeshadow, false lashes, mascara, and a gorgeous platinum blond wig on this pig, pass it, and the market will bounce.  It's a big infusion, so it will be a decent bounce.  And the money will come in installments, so it will be somewhat sustained, managed and controlled.

But all they have to do is manage and sustain the bounce through November 4th so they won't get their heads stuck on a pike.  But there are some forces they can't control.  Gravity is one.  Supply and demand is another.  Cascading bank collapses is another toughie. 

My prediction is they will be able to hold on for about 2 weeks, all the while praising their own intestinal fortitude and political courage in the face of such controversy.  They did what they knew had to be done for the American people, even tho it was unpopular, because sometimes that's what you have to do as a good leader.  You have to take a gut check and do the right thing.  And the ONLY reason you got that paycheck you got this month was all thanks to them.

These are their prewritten talking points.  But it won't last through the election.  The system is too unstable for that.  In two weeks they will be out of money again and need more liquidity.

Or it will last juuuuuuust until November 5th.  And then God help us all.

Either way, hang on.  It's going to be a wild ride.

And ps. I'm so sick of people saying how Main Street is feeling pain here.  No they aren't.  Not yet.  You haven't SEEN pain.  Well, you are seeing the beginning tremors in Georgia where you're waiting in line for gas.  Get ready for the bank runs and the bread lines.  It's all coming down.

I am so looking forward to...

Walking to the grocery store.  Walking to the bus stop and metroing to work.  Walking to the bank and banking sans parking tickets.  Walking to the neighborhood bar.  Having a neighborhood bar. Walking home drunk from the neighborhood bar.  Did I mention the neighborhood bar?  More dancing with generous rich people... at the neighborhood bar.

Finally having a respectable fence for the dogs.

Having a cellar in which to put boxes of crap that I don't need every day but can't bear to toss out.

Not jumping every time there is a noise outside.  Not sleeping with a gun.  Not fearing the police quite as much.  Not fearing the robbers quite as much.

Not wondering about the level of craziness of the homeless people living in the alley outside my door.

Not living in Prince Georges County anymore.  Not dealing with the landlord's insanity anymore.

Not living in Maryland anymore.

I love August in DC.  Congress is out of session and I get a little breathing room to explore.  Plus its good for you because as the saying goes - No man's life, liberty or property is secure when Congress is in session.  :)  ahhhh...

So I went to the Newseum today, and there was a lot to see.  Not enough WWII newsreels in my opinion, tho.  I could sit and watch those ALL DAY LONG.  I only got 4 minutes.  *pout*

There's a lot I could talk about but one thing stuck with me.  In the ethics exhibit there was an interactive bit where it gives you a situation, based on reality, and you get two choices.  Interesting.  A photo pops up of a horrifically starved toddler in Sudan, crumpled on the ground with a vulture (a particularly sinister looking one) looking on in the background.  She was apparently crawling to a food aid station.  It doesn't look like she could have made it.  This photo won a Pulitzer.  The eithics question was - do you a) Take the picture and NOT help the child, or b) NOT take the picture and get involved, help the child.

Am I the only one frustrated with these two choices?  Does no one see a third option here?  The journalist in question decided to take the picture, and go weep for humanity under a tree before he went off back home, to his comfortable life, where this image spurred increased aid to the situation, (did that aid really help?  I don't know) but the guilt of not helping that one child drove him to take his own life.  It is not known what happened to that child.  I have a pretty good guess.

There was another photo in the Pulitzer prize section of another malnourished child, who looked in about the same condition, who died hours after the photo was taken.  So, I'm sorry, that baby did not grow up to go to Harvard and study Marine Biology or Photojournalism or something.  "Fate of the child is unknown..."

The photographer said he was told disease was rampant among the people there and not to touch them because they might be communicable.

Ah.  I see. 

So the real choice is not journalistic ethics here.  The real choice is - do I sully my own skin with the germs of this miserable wretch of a human being and possibly get sick, or do I ... just not.  That is the only reason I can think of that one could not BOTH take the picture, showing the plight of the people, AND THEN pick up the baby and take her to the aid station. 

I'm pretty sure she would have died anyway.  She looked pretty bad off.

But she was probably about 3 years old.  Think of an existence like that.  No childish running and playing, no smiles, not even tears for lack of hydration probably.  Just dragging her starved body through the dust in a vain search of some comfort, some help.  With a bird looking on, waiting for her to die, so he could eat what was left of her.  That was her life.  That was all she knew.  All the beauty in the world, all the joy, the learning, the color...  but she will never know that.  This world to her was hunger, dust, misery, pain, loneliness and war.  And that's it.  For so many that come into it.

How can you be that close to someone... take their picture... and even think about... yourself?  Really?  Geez, man.  You've got health insurance.  Whatever she's got, the hospitals you have access to can fix.  You could have given her a few moments of love and human concern.  A taste of beauty and compassion.  There were people over here on my side of the ocean that sent money to help her.  She couldn't get to it.  She was trying.  You were on her side of that ocean and you left her.  You left her to come collect your Pulitzer.  And here in the Newseum where I see your famous photograph for the first time, a false choice is set up to justify what you left undone...

I don't think hindsight would have let me live with that either.

I know, I know.  Two movies in a weekend.  Shut up.  But I do know this - I am a cool wife for not making my husband go see this with me.  I respect his masculinity too much.  He was playing poker with the boys, so I took my opportunity to escape.  I was on a mission to get a new phone - I've had mine so long I'm out of contract by several months!  Got the Verizon LG Dare.  I think I like it.  Better network than what you get with the iPhone.  So I ventured to Union Station, which is my new happy place.  I will be going there in my mind during my next pap smear.  (TMI?  sorry)  And I stayed for the movie.

A movie based on the music of ABBA?  Wasn't that Muriel's Wedding?  (AWESOME flick, btw)  I couldn't resist.  This is the funny thing - I've read the most disparaging reviews of this film, and I don't disagree with them, yet I STILL liked the movie.

It's like Calgon, it takes you away - to the Greek Isles, to a place where life is (beautiful all the time?) simpler, nay simplistic, but dreamy.  The gorgeous Mediterrenean Sea, the beach, the sun, the tropical vegitation, and pretty people with flowing hair blowing in the wind, free of product.  Ahhhh...  its so very nice.

The plot is as fluffy and ridiculous as a Shakespearean comedy.  The singing and dancing are very much reminiscent of a Bollywood production, which I like.  We'll see if the rest of America is as ready to branch out this way as I am.  History shows us that when times are bad, people flock to escapism.  Bet on comedies and musicals when there are wars, recessions and famine.  When life gets too serious, people don't go to movies to think, they go to laugh and get away.  They go for fantasy.  Not reality.   Which is why I'm looking into investing in entertainment.  I was sniffing down a path, as a matter of fact, and found George Soros was thinking exactly what I was... which I think is a good sign.  Anyway.

Meryl Streep was featured a LOT more than I was expecting, and she's fine in the role.  She might have brushed her hair and lost the overalls a bit sooner.  Seeing Pierce Brosnan sing was jarring at first.  Then I saw the credits.  (!)  I love the guy, and he obviously didn't want to be type cast as the James Bond type for the rest of his career!  :)  Good for him.  Break out role for Amanda Seyfried who I love from Big Love.  Wow for her.  Aishwarya Rai - watch out!  She sings and the camera loves her.

Don't see this movie if you're going to be a stick in the mud about it.  If you can't suspend your disbelief... a LOT you'll just end up rolling your eyes the whole time and annoying the people who brung ya.  This is why hubby wasn't invited.  :)

Some observations.  Some spoilers...

Heath Ledger's performace was NOT overhyped just because he died.  It really was that good.  I think only Johnny Depp could step into the role in future installments.

Didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal as, well, me. ;)  I don't think I've ever liked anything she has done.  Katie Holmes was much better.

Christian Bale.  Wow.  I've been on the look out for him since Empire of the Sun.  He's amazing, and damn sexy.  But unfortunately, no sex in this movie.  meh.  There was a noticeable lack of sexual chemistry/tension between Maggie and... anyone.  Poor casting choice, IMHO.  I mean, do they HAVE to pin all of that on ONE female character, who could turn out to be a dud?  Can we have maybe two or three named female characters that play a role a little more interesting that clutching at her kids and crying?  I just think there should be more balance to the force, that's all.  Give me something to relate to.  Someone for Batman to f...all in love with.  (and that other thing too)  I'm not being all feminazi or anything, I'm just saying.

SPOILER:  I'm glad the people on the ferries did not launch pre-emptive attacks on eachother.  But I'm not going to ruminate on the politics of the movie.  Should just enjoy things once in awhile without injecting some great political statement or significance into them.  Choices were a big theme in this movie, but it was interesting how the choices were false choices, this evil or that evil, when, like the people on the ferries, you could choose not to choose and no evil comes about.  OK I'm done.  Sorry.

What else?  The effects were awesome.  I loved the glowy eyed sonar bit.  It looked kickass, and plus bats have, you know, sonar.  And its cool when Batman figures out a way (semi-plausible even) to see everything through triangulating cellphones.  Also cool that Morgan Freeman objected to that invasive power to spy.  OK I'm DONE.

I really enjoy that this series of Batman has this element of plausibility.  No superhuman powers, just lots and lots of money and his own R&D department.  I don't think its better than the previous stylized, comic book type movies, just a different element that is also interesting.

Batman's gravelly whisper was a touch overdone.

Overall, a great great popcorn movie.  A classic.

Ironically enough it was my stint at Covenant College that began my trek to Gnosticism, although they didn't mean to, I'm sure.

I transferred to Covenant after my sophomore year at UNC, thinking that going to a christian school would bring me closer to God.  I think it really just made me annoyed by other Christians.  Most of the individuals I met there were wonderful.  My roommate was great.  The girls on my floor were great.  It was being a part of the community as a whole I found awkward and restricting.  I didn't want a dress code.  I didn't want to be required to go to chapel every day at 11.  Most of all, I was annoyed by the idea that tuition was an arm and a leg and I STILL had required "servanthood" ie forced volunteerism.  Also, I don't think I was what the Bible belt boys wanted to bring home to their mothers for the holidays...  for some reason.  I didn't last there for very long, and transferred back to UNC Chapel Hill for my senior year.

One of my required classes at Covenant was Old Testament History.  We learned about the Ecumenical Council and how scripture was put together.  See, it didn't always exist as the conglomeration of books that it is today.  This group of old men got together and had a conference where they decided which books made the cut, and which ones didn't.  We also learned about the apocrypha, the books of hidden wisdom, that are in the Catholic Bible, but not in ours, and we discussed in class why, and what's wrong and inconsistent about them.

Kudos to Covenant for bringing up these issues in an academic atmosphere and giving me stuff to think about.  But they gave me much more to think about than they could answer for me.  For instance, who were all these old guys really?  And why should I trust them to put together a book that speaks for God?  Who did they exclude?  And who did they include for possibly questionable reasons?  Why do we hear SO much from Paul, who some would call a misogynist, and nothing from the women who were so close to Jesus?  I don't think Jesus ever told women to sit down and shut up.... why should I listen when Paul does?

Enter the Nag Hammadi, found in Egypt in the 50's.  Sure enough, women did have something to say.  Mary Magdalene DID write a gospel, but it was put down, she was viciously characterized as a prostitute, and her voice to defend herself is lost, almost.  It's in tatters, this long lost one remaining copy, but the gist of it is what much of the rest of the gnostics implied. 

You don't need a priest or the state or some earthly authority to guide you to God.  It is within you.  All you need to know about God is within you.

No wonder this philosophy had to be put down.  This implies that individuals have the power to know God.  Do you realize what a threat to power that is, and could have been, if allowed to succeed?  How many wars would not have been fought if God-ordained powers on the Earth had no authority to tell you what demons were invading under power of Satan, that you had to leave your farm, take up arms and give your very life to defeat?  If the state has not the authority of God Himself to call armies to arms... the state has no power to wage war.

Which is probably why the Founders wanted a separation from all that.  Let's not be telling people to kill in the name of God.  We still find a way tho, don't we?  I've said before that the soldier ONLY EVER fights for God and country.  He doesn't fight for the real reasons, because he doesn't know them.  Those are closely guarded state secrets.  All you need to know is Satan is coming and by God you better fight.  Don't believe in God?  Ummm...  I hear they also want to rape your women, and bayonet small American children.  They also kick dogs.  Yeah.  Of course the other side is being told exactly the same thing.  All we're waiting for is a pre-emptive attack, or an attack, depending on whose side of the line you're on.

But anyway, back to gnosticism.  To be an agnostic literally means you claim no knowledge.  To be a gnostic means you claim all the knowledge you need.  I don't mean that in the know-it-all haughty sense, but in the sense that we're all the same in the eyes of God.  We all have a soul, we all have access to prayer, and we all have a still small voice.

And frankly, if the Ecumenical Council wanted to take what Mary Magdalene said with a grain of salt (to put it VERY nicely) then I will take what Paul says with a grain of salt.  I don't need a man to be the spiritual guide of me.  For one, I've looked.  There aren't any men I'd trust with that.  And B, what does Paul know about my life and situation?  He was writing very interesting letters hundreds of years ago to people who lived in a completely different culture and time.  I could write great letters today too, and eventually they'd be obsolete.

The point is, listen to God and your own inner guidance.  Re-evaluate the rest as necessary.

Your heart's desire is on the internet.  You just have to properly Google in order to find it. 

An example:  I got it into my head that we needed a little hole-in-the-wall, family-owned Italian restaurant in our lives.  The kind with dripping wax candles, and red-and-white checked tablecloths... not Maggiano's, not Olive Garden, not a chain, something rustic, with really great food.  First, of course, I asked the locals, the restless natives.  I was met with puzzlement.  One even asked if I was planning a gangland style hit.  har har.  (but if I was....)  So I googled on "family-owned" italian md, and eventually pinpointed Amalfi as highly promising.  I was perzactly correct.

We went there last night.  I was expecting a location more on an aging main street but its more... semi-industrial park.  No matter.  It has a brick front and that is also key.  There is outdoor seating under a breezy veranda.  It had rained, so inside we went. 

The decor inside was just perfect.  Marks off for no red and white tablecloths tho.  ;)  But they did say they had them in the back.  So our waiter comes, and I'm not even joking, its the son of the owners.  AND he seems genuinely delighted and proud to be there.  That is very cool.  Exceedingly friendly service.

They had a valpolicella by the glass.  Excuse me?  By the glass?  Yes, please.  Valpolicella is a nice light red wine, very drinkable, virtually no aftertaste, light on the tannins.  Very nice.  And Mike met his new favorite beer, Peroni.

Started with the tomato and mozarella, which was wonderful.  Mike had veal parmesan, I had chicken marsala.  Both were the best we ever had.  Yummy.  Undaunted, we marched headily into a canoli for Mike, tiramisu for me.  Again, best we ever had.  And the bill was about half what Maggiano's would charge for 3 courses, two drinks each.

Amalfi's website is here:  http://www.amalfirockville.com/home.html 

So if you're coming into town for the Revolution March on July 12 and want a homey little place like this, be sure to invite me.  :) 

So ever since I've started uploading silly word games and that movie my friends and I did 8 years ago, I've been hemorrhaging Youtube subscribers.  That's alright, I'm not a subscriber whore.  But at the same time I should be sharing the parts of my life that I can share.  Because it is GOOD right now.

Hubby and I are on vacation in LA right now having the best time EVAR.  Everything went right with the trip out here.  In fact, I upgraded our rental car which was going to be a subcompact economy thing, to a HOT red Solstice two seater convertible that is just SO much fun to toodle around the Hills in.  It was only $11 more per day.  WORTH IT!  I was already getting a half price deal, and they gave me this thing for $27 a day that usually goes for $70 a day.  sweeeeeet.  It would have bordered on criminal to pass that up, right?

The weather is perfect.  Sunny, with cool breezes from the Pacific and its like this ALL the time.  Mike is just so happy about the weather.  I found us a CHEAP hotel in Beverly Hills that is actually quite nice, and perfectly located.  Tiny rooms, but it was still quite a find.  We're sitting outside in the courtyard relaxing until we need to head off to see Jay Leno later.  I wrote away for tickets to be in the audience like 6 weeks ago.  I've been in Conan O'Brien's audience a couple of times, but really looking forward to Jay.  Taping starts at 4pm, so we should be done with plenty of sunlight, so afterwards I want to go on a pilgrimage to Sprinkles cupcakes and see what those are like.  While we're there we'll window shop a bit on Rodeo.  Fun, huh?  Tomorrow Mike wants to go to the Commerce or the Bicycle and play some poker.  He knows he has to buy me in for us to go, so I hope they have some really really small stakes!

This is my life - when its good, its really really good.  When its bad, like it was a few weeks back, its really bad.  Yes, we needed these few days to balance out the force.  When you're evicted, burglarized, hospitalized and generally traumatized all within a few days...  you need a red Solstice to drive around Beverly Hills to make up for it, yes?  :)  This is the LIFE.   ahhhhhhhhhh....