Starving billionaires

Check out the picture of this guy's wallet. Interesting article about Zimbabwe from the Guardian.

Caterpillar Hunter

There was a bumper crop of moths this year and now there are lots of these guys running around outside.

It's a Calosoma semilaeve -- about an inch long, and they're pretty fast moving.

Lest we forget

Ron Paul beat John McCain in the Nevada primary. So some of this action probably shouldn't be entirely surprising.

Don't count out the Ron Paul supporters quite yet.

Chaos over Paul cuts short gathering

After a super-majority of Ron Paul supporters captured control of the Republican state convention Saturday, state party officials abruptly canceled the event without electing delegates to the national convention.

Early in the day, state delegates supporting Paul's continued pursuit of the Republican nomination voted through a rules change that forced the state party to abandon its preset ballot of potential national convention delegates and open up the race to the rest of the state delegates.

The vote followed a rousing speech by Paul of Texas, who said his presidential campaign will continue as long as he has support.

But as the convention continued into the evening, chairman Bob Beers said the party's contract for the hall at the Peppermill Resort Casino had expired and the event would be rescheduled.

"Due to a rules change that left us on an overtime basis, we will recess the convention until a date that we are going to announce next week," Beers told a shocked crowd, which stood silent for a few seconds before erupting in boos.

(full story here)

More food prices

More insight about food prices at John Mauldin's site here. (Check out the article "Food Price Inflation, Monetary Policy & Financial Markets" by David Kotok).

Bio oops

America's biofuels policy is turning out to be a big mistake. Interesting editorial by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson in Investor's Business Daily today.

Now I'm off to find some food.

Pretty good typing test...

... if nothing else...

88

It's fire season already

Very hot today, and now this... this is just a few miles down the road from me, on the other side of the mesa from my house.

Too early in the year for this stuff.

Fire burning in Sorrento Valley

It's nice to share

Sense

Descartes: “Good sense is the most equitably distributed of all things because no matter how much or little a person has, everyone feels so abundantly provided with good sense that he feels no desire for more than he already possesses.”

(via Daring Fireball here)

Just to be clear

My eyes don't really look like that. I was just talking about the color.

How do you score?

Try this financial literacy quiz for Congress. (Bloomberg)

Big Number Change

I didn't know about this. April 22 is the anniversary of the Big Number Change in the UK, which happened in 2000.

This is our next President, eh?

"Why Can't I Just Eat My Waffle?"

The Dogwood Tree

This poem from Fr. Dwight was a nice way for me to start the morning.

The Dogwood Tree
For a Papal Visit

My garden has an ancient dogwood tree,
grown from a cutting from a tree that dates
back beyond all living memory.
The old gardener loves that tree, and relates
the tale of how one tree was kept alive
for thousands of years through bad times and good;
how some cuttings would falter, others thrive,
yet all, both weak and strong, bore the same wood.

As I gaze on the old tree another thing
comes to mind. With it’s blossom white and pure,
it stands like a solemn sentinel for Spring;
it holds together youth and age—and more:
I see that each bough like an arm clad in white,
bows to the world’s ancient dark affliction,
then lifts to grant a fragile benediction
That banishes the darkness and renews the light.

Shipped!

marriedtothesea.com

Lamp Post

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something -- let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached on the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, 'Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good -- -- -- ' At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamppost is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmedieval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp we must now discuss in the dark.

- G. K. Chesterton, "Heretics"

I'm glad it got the right answer

I would have been worried that there was something fundamentally wrong with me otherwise.

Your Eyes Should Be Brown

Your eyes reflect: Depth and wisdom What's hidden behind your eyes: A tender heart

What Color Should Your Eyes Be?

Squirrel? Meet lead. Lead? Squirrel.

Russian squirrel pack ‘kills dog’ (Dvorak Uncensored)