I will start with some of the more important things in life....

Namely, food! Non-chain local food at that....

We tried the Athens location of Village Pizza with some friends this evening. We arrived fairly early. That ended up being a good thing because by the time we left, folks were waiting outside to be seated. There's more space in the Athens restaurant AND they serve beer. The food was great (not unexpected)! If you live in Athens, give Village Pizza a shot. Here's the map again:


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Well, the bailout has passed and been signed into law. Bud Cramer (Alabama District 5 Representative) voted yes. It's a good thing he's not up for re-election.

Check out the latest television ad for Bob Barr:

Even as I type, legions of pundits and fact checkers and political aficionados/operatives are slicing and dicing and analyzing tonight's debate....

My two cents...

I think that Sarah Palin did OK. I say OK because I don't think it was exceptional. She may have "saved some face" given some recent trouble, but I don't think she came anywhere near hitting it out of the park. To me, she seemed more engaging than Joe Biden, but not extraordinarily more. Both sides did OK with the standard party talking points (and half-truths). Hey, what's to be expected, the VP is essentially a glorified cheerleader anyway, right? However, all that being said, I'm glad I'll be voting for Bob Barr. McCain isn't a far cry from George Bush and, sadly, Sarah Palin reminds me more of George Bush (philosophy) than John McCain. As for Obama-Biden....YUCK!!!

The Senate voted yes on the "investment"/"bailout" and it's looking as if the House will vote yes as well. Why is the bailout DANGEROUS for American national security?



Let's not forget, the statutory limit on the public debt ceiling will be going up to $11.3 trillion under the current "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008". Here's a history of the changes to the statutory limit on the public debt from the United States Code. The page (or the various other government pages) doesn't have the $10 trillion (9.815) limit enacted last year......

Of course both of the VP candidates sound like talking points parrots......

But, I think it's funny that Palin continues to attack the Obama/Biden ticket on energy. Why? Oh, I don't know......

Listed at the link in the body of this post.....

are the Senators who voted yea (or nay) for the American taxpayer to take a huge bite out of a multi-billion dollar cow patty. I was extraordinarily happy to see that the Senators from my state voted nay. The House hasn't voted yet and I will CERTAINLY (right after I'm done with this) be contacting my Representative (Bud Cramer) asking for him to come to his senses and vote against the current piece of tripe floating around in Congressland....

As a slight (and trust me.... short) break from the finance/economy fiasco....

Bob Barr talks about civil liberties....



Now back to probably one of the bigger matters at hand...

My take on the "new and improved" bailout plan is that it's still a "cow patty". In fact, this one's even sillier. It's still designed to help the banks and raise the public debt but the "new and improved" version includes some tax breaks and other beans to appease the GOP and the Democrats. As a Libertarian, I'm all for tax breaks, but they are CRAP if you don't curb government spending. I tend to supplement my thoughts with links to professionals who believe the same thing. Sorry....

I, for one, was happy to see that the "bailout" was voted down.......

I believe that Bob Barr was happy as well...



I'm not necessarily happy about the economic downturn that will inevitably follow, but this provides a little bit of breathing room for the Congress to clear their heads and THINK if they (and hence, WE THE PEOPLE) want to dabble in excessive state meddling in the business process with taxpayer money. Additionally, the original package would have raised the public debt ceiling to 11.315 trillion dollars. It was just raised to 9.815 trillion dollars in September of 2007. So, as part of the 700 billion dollar package, this administration (and McCain and Obama if you accept their tepid support as legitimate) and 205 House members wanted to raise the future taxation burden on you and your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren (and so on and so on) by 1.5 trillion dollars. When does it end? I was never overly happy with the Clinton administration but at least the budget was balanced for a few years (on paper, at least). Those folks in DC right now are kind of scaring me! What a time for a protest vote...

I never thought I would see the phrase "cow patty" in the Congressional Record but here (top left of the document) it is.

And now for the latest video from Bob Barr.....

Q&A at Reason with Bob Barr



Other stuff? We enjoyed finding Village Pizza (East Limestone location) and dining there occasionally. FWIW, the East Limestone location has a presence on MySpace.



It was VERY cool to hear that they had opened a new restaurant in Athens, AL. I believe that the address is 222 W. Market St. Athens, AL. It's the northeast corner of the intersection of W. Market St. and N. Jefferson St.

See the Google Map below....


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