George Rebane
There’s only so much one can say for living in a winter wonderland. And after a day or two, much of it is unprintable. In our part of the country what adds to the sense of wonder and adventure is a big power outage. Our power went out yesterday morning and PG&E’s recorded lady told us not to worry, their crews were working hard and power would return soon. And about twelve hours later it did come on for about four minutes. At our house a short burst of jubilation, and then ‘Oh s@#t!’. Looks like someone made a boo-boo in bringing the various circuits back on line, and a distribution transformer (one of the big ones behind the chain link fence) blew. That’s just my guess, but when we called back to the recorded lady, she was reading from a new page. No more hope, no more ‘we’re working hard’, only that suddenly “equipment was not available” and that we should get ready for an indefinite outage.
Our house is rigged for these little interludes. A couple of years ago we installed a propane powered Kohler 12KW generator, and after brushing off the snow, that little puppy started right up with the push of a button. It has been making things bearable, consuming about 2 gallons per hour. But given the dour warning from the PG&E lady, we did turn it off last night, went to bed early, and counted on our love to keep us warm. Well, truth be told, we did ease the burden on that sentiment somewhat with a very large comforter filled with Canadian goose down. The temperature in the house went down to 53F overnight, but in the morning the Kohler again responded to the ‘start’ button augmented with little silent prayer. The PG&E lady was no more hopeful today. I started up the fireplace before breakfast, and soon we’ll be huddled around the fire making Valentines cards for each other. It’ll snow again later today, and tomorrow the real duzer is due. So, how’s by you?
I see where Barney Frank and his congressional clowns committee took some bank CEOs to task for not lending enough of their bailout money. It doesn’t matter that the banks are already lending all that they prudently can. We have to remember that imprudent lending by GSEs (e.g. Fannie and Freddie) and the same banks was a big contributor to the current mess. Now, when the employment situation and business environment is worse, Barney’s bunch wants more lending. What this three-ring circus doesn’t reveal is that most of the lending they’re trying to push is done by the secondary lenders making credit card, car loans, etc. These lenders are beyond the bailout pale, and are holding back because Congress has yet to define how their overall stimulus plan will define the risk landscape for them. So instead of telling the country which way we will be going, the buffoons are doing what comes naturally, more political theater.
What really irks about all this BS is that these guys know we’re dumb and won’t look behind the curtain. They also know that the MSM will either be equally dense on the matter, or unwilling to educate their public to the essentials of this farce. A 23 second soundbite can only contain so much, and Barney is such a lovable character.
BTW, speaking of government shenanigans, a correspondent just emailed me a very interesting link to a website called ‘wikileaks’ (Wikipedia description here). These folks make available to the rest of us the myriads of internal reports and statements (‘leaks’) that are only distributed to congressional offices and outfits like GAO, etc, and not intended to see the light of day. Another of the many things the internet is making available to those who will take the time and care enough about what is happening to our country.
Happy Valentines Day!
rebanesruminations.com 
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