The new lead musicians for a Birmingham, Alabama rock band….Meredith Grace and Meredith Ellen. Boom tada Boom Boom!

Mere is due back today on a 5:30ish flight. I’ll be putting up a set of photos and stuff on Duckon and her vacation with her sister’s family shortly.

NYT story about an FAA inspector who blew the whistle on a new airplane’s safety problems, and was silenced by the FAA and the airline by removing him from his job. Remember that airplane that crashed near Buffalo this winter? Yep, that airline and that airplane was the one in question.

Mr. Monteleon said his supervisors were too “cozy” with Colgan, and eager to help it keep its schedule; the airline had a contract with Continental Airlines to begin flights in theDash 8 plane — flying as Continental Express — in a little over a month after it acquired its first plane of that type.

In one memo retained by Mr. Monteleon, his manager indicates that he was reassigned because of his “conduct during a work-related duty” and because “the matter also required management to immediately respond to the operator’s scheduling needs.” The operator was Colgan.

No, it’s not because of the demand, it’s because hedge funds and market speculators who drove it to $4-5 a gallon gas are going back into the market because they think that commodity is going to make money again.

Senate hearings today on GM and Chrysler dealerships being closed; sounds like there’s going to be a how dare you cut our constituents’ dealerships fuss. Such as:

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who met with the GM and Chrysler executives on Tuesday, said Congress would not try to “go through the administration to get them to do something in the companies.”

But Dorgan said it was reasonable for the lawmakers to ask Chrysler: “Are you sure you’re making the right decision in the way you treat these kinds of dealers in certain rural areas?”

Suuuuuure.  Remember that when GM closed out Oldsmobile, it cost them $1 billion dollars to pay off the dealers.  As I’ve said over and over again, this dealership issue is going to be a big deal.

Some read-this items on the GM bankruptcy:

• Cissna Park, Illinois struggles with the loss of a huge chunk of its tax base, as a local GM dealership is closed.
• A LA Times article on why GM went down for the count.
• Michael Moore, a GM kid like me, on where we go from here and why GM got to this situation.  “The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars?”
• …and a rebuttal to the Moore plans in the above article.
  

Here’s a map from AP of the major stimulus projects on a county-by-county basis.   Zoomable flash.   In my case, the big project in my area is the resurfacing and repair of a major nearby road that we use on a daily basis that is pothole city (which is unfortunately a widespread problem in the Chicago area after this last winter).    They’re also fixing our own street.

Getting ready for the trip out tomorrow morning; I’m tired and it’s only 7:45 pm - and I still have a lot to do. Susan and I were taking care of things that Had To Be Done before we could go, rather than the actual packing. This included planting the asparagus, which we hope makes it, making copies for Mere of our audiobooks to listen to on the road later this week (Susan wanted to use the Lightscribe, which works well, but takes forever to write), and I had to get a bunch of other things in order.

One of the items To Do was to get the electronics ready for us; an FM transmitter for the PDAs for MP3s in the car, and a direct-connect cassette thingy for plugging same into my van’s radio. Also, a CD player (plays MP3 disks and regular CDs) to use for plugging in stuff to the transmitter or the cassette thingy as needed. Plus paraphernalia for the PDAs, setting up the laptop with updates and fixes to take along, loading stuff on the kindle, finding any books to take along, grabbing copies of my Sidewise stuff, and so on.

Now, I gotta dive out to the van to clean it out of mostly Mere junk before we go. See ya later!

• I wonder how many of the people who are going on about “teabag” protests understand the common slang usage of the term?
• Retail vacancies at malls and shopping areas are soaring.
• Men aren’t buying new underwear, which was one of Alan Greenspan’s classic uh-oh-the-sky-is-falling barometers of how well business is doing.
• My question on Coleman-as-sore-loser-and-endlessly-litigating-this is  - if Pawlenty decides to not certify the election until all appeals and whatnot have ended, how much in-state political doom will he create for himself in Minnesota?
• Normally, the rate of how-long-cars-stay-on-the-road fluctuates between 10 and 15 years, but at the current sales rates, people must be expecting them to stick around for over 26 years.
• Warren Buffett’s company just lost their AAA rating.  No, we won’t talk about how the rating agencies tried to shnooker us into believing all of the mortgage-related paper was made of gold, too, and busily bankrupted all sorts of small towns who went in for goofy paper arrangements.
• Our constitutional right to whup our children.  Well, real soon now…

Major stuff is coming down tonight and tomorrow in regard to the big automakers; the CEO of GM was forced out by the government, which said essentially that neither Chrysler or GM were putting forward ‘viability’ plans that were any count.    GM has 90 days to try one last time, and Chrysler has 30 days to set up a merger/buy-out with Fiat or someone else.    Not clear on the details; keep your ears open in the morning.

British discount airline mulls making their planes’ toilets PAY toilets, assume people have pound coins in their pocket. I assure you, I don’t carry major change in my pockets in US airliners - the metal detectors would go nuts.

UK bankers have a fit over cuts in bonuses and whatnot; some say they’ll look for overseas jobs (good luck finding them), some demand their million-dollar pensions for driving the bank into collapse are sacrosanct, and some are going back to divorce courts to demand that their lavish spousal settlements be reduced because they aren’t going to keep getting zillions in bonuses.

Lesson #1: Don’t make public statements about dramatic events in your life unless they’re something that won’t fall apart the next day.  Bobby Jindal’s bureaucrat-fighting story during Katrina sounded bogus at the time, and it turns out that it was. So on top of everything else, he makes up fake stuff on national TV - hey, this guy is seriously dumb, folks!

And lastly, John Bolton makes a funny about terrorists nuking Chicago ( a real thigh-slapper to me), Joe the Plumber suggesting Congresscritters who don’t like the war should be shot,  and Tom DeLay suggesting that Limbaugh is right, and that he too wants Obama to fail and the country to go into a depression.

Secret Service agent in nearby Naperville notes the terrible, snowy weather and all sorts of reports of terrible commuting situations this morning, and decided to take the commuter train this morning.   Never took the train before.  Suddenly realized ‘hey, I have a gun on me, I should figure out about train security’, so he says something like ‘Hey, I have a gun, what’s security like on the train?  Any metal detectors?’ to the ticket counter guy at the Naperville station.  Then, he gets on the train without IDing himself as a Secret Service guy or cop or anything.  DING DING DING DING!!!!

He gets taken OFF the train by the Lisle (our town, next stop) cops at gunpoint with semi-automatic cop stuff.    Schools call me at home and say they’re in lockdown.  The entire commuter train line suddenly went into lockdown, stranding a zillion commuters.   And the guy’s brain went into lockdown, apparently.

Be interesting to know how much trouble the guy got into with work over that one.

Abu Dhabi and other Persian Gulf nations stick serious money into post-Oil green energy, because that oil isn’t going to be around forever for all those air conditioners, etc., etc.

“The leadership in these breakthrough technologies is a title the U.S. can lose easily,” said Peter Barker-Homek, chief executive of Taqa, Abu Dhabi’s national energy company. “Here we have low taxes, a young population, accessibility to the world, abundant natural resources and willingness to invest in the seed capital.”

Director of the largest solar cell research group in the world, Professor McGehee had tried and failed to get money from the United States government or American industries to commercialize cheaper solar cells. Research money is tight, he noted.

With the Saudi money he has hired 16 new researchers and expects the new energy cells to dominate the market by 2015. “People are astonished to see how big this grant is and where it came from,” he said, noting that his past grants from the United States government were one-fiftieth that amount.

Experts say the vast investments from the gulf states have already restarted stalled environmental technologies.

With no industrial history, the gulf states say they have the advantage of starting from scratch in developing green manufacturing; countries like the United States are forced to retool ailing industries, like car manufacturing.

Also, although the gulf states have previously showed little interest in green energy like wind or solar, they have another advantage, Mr. Awad noted as he stood in the shimmering desert. “The sun shines 365 days a year,” he said.

Yesterday was my first day out with both feet in REAL shoes; it was snowing in Chicago, and I had to go downtown to have my monthly all-day session with the leukemia docs and get my IVIG treatment.  The two dogs had torn up my sleep a lot the night before with getting up and down from the bed (I’d just as soon they not do so, because I don’t care for the parade at all, and I don’t care to have to argue with them over the covers, but Susan loves them being up there…) and since the docs give me a real heavy dose of Benadryl to avoid reactions when I get the IVIG infusions, I ended up sleeping a LOT yesterday.  Slept while waiting for my blood labs to be taken.  Slept waiting for the docs to call me in and slept while in the exam room waiting for the doc to show up.  And slept in the treatment room as they were pumping the stuff in me.

Came home (late) ate supper, watched the news  and slept until 4 am or so; took a stiff dose of melatonin for that.  I guess I’m slept out at this point.

Several people at the doctor’s office noticed that I wasn’t on the Roll-A-Bout scooter or in my special shoe; many kind thoughts about my health progress.  The docs noted a slight uptick in my white counts, but nothing all that major.

The worst was that I really had lost a lot of stamina by being off my feet so much; not much ability to stand up for long.  I had a real crisis on that with a crowded bus going to the hospital; I found that I simply couldn’t stand that long, and the heavy traffic was making the bus crawl.  I finally started getting sick from it all, and sat on an internal bus step rather than deal with standing and throwing up all over the passengers.

Another problem: the bus cards I had from my stash in the basement had all expired, and were no longer any good.  And I had *no* cash on me.  (Our main account is dry, and I coudn’t get the PIN on our secondary account to work with the automatic teller.)  Romsfulynn from LJ (who is a friend and co-worker) ran into me at the bus stop, and she loaned me $8 to get to and from the hospital; paid $3 to get there (the bus just jumped to $2.25, and I didn’t have change), and broke the $5 after the treatments.  I haven’t been out much, so I haven’t been carrying any cash money with me.

Also, there was a kind guy on the bus who helped me when I was getting sick, and a lady at the bus stop who offered to use her bus pass to give me a ride - but it was set for her only, and wouldn’t do anything for me.  So yes, yes indeed, there are kind people (Hi, Lynn) in this world.

This was a very odd Christmas for me; some really high points and low points. Some old traditions unexpectedly brought back, and some things mucked.  Julbord and full holiday report after the cut:

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Went out and got prescription reading glasses today; my prescription is +1.75, and they work very nicely.  Worst part was slipping and falling HARD on the slick tile floor just inside the Vision Works store; as I’ve said before, with my cruddy balance, I learned long ago to fall down the best way I can when I do slip and fall.  Mostly managed to whack my right knee and shin hard enough to Ooooch-ouch the afternoon away.

Kurt and John spent last Friday through Sunday here, and took off Monday to nose around downtown at the Art Institute.  The train back at 7 pm was oversold, and they ended up on a bus which got them home at about 4 am Tuesday, to find their car totally buried in a snowbank!

We did some shopping at some local places they were interested in, and hung out at home chatting.  Saturday was the Julbord, which was great, and me getting in a car accident, not so great.  (Very minor fender-bender, but the other person who caused it ran off - we got the license number to the cops, who gave them a chewing out and let them go.  Wasn’t worth a full complaint and arrest. )  John was also somewhat under the weather, and spent big chunks of time with a sinus infection / headache / you name it, and was moderate-to-heavy miserable with it.

It’s been alternating here between VERY cold and very snowy; we have a service that digs out the driveway, but not the sidewalks and outside stairs - that’s up at present to Susan, Mere and Connie.

Of course, at this time of year, I miss my mom terribly.  I wish she were here to hang with us and see what her granddaughter has become.  Meredith today sat down and grooved on The Prisoner of Zenda - the 1950s version - and I can see the two of them discussing it.

• Craft stores and online stores that sell handmade stuff are doing well as cheap gift-things with the recession.  Me, I’m worthless at handmade gifts, unless you make ‘em on a computer.
• People (and primates) will believe lies and deceive each other far more than dolphins will. I say we elect dolphins.
• Yes, the non-US based automakers are doing better than the Big Three, but that’s not saying much.  This is Toyota’s worst year in the last 70, and the in-US plants are slowing down, not being built or not selling all that great; even Priuses are way down in sales.  If you aren’t sure about being able to work, or your bank isn’t handing out car loans, it doesn’t matter that the Fed lowered the prime rate.
• Shoplifting is way up.  So are situations where parents are leaving kids at home because they can’t afford day care, which busts up day care providers, or they can’t afford kids at all,  or dump the family pet because they can’t afford that, which either loads up the animal shelters or leaves starving animals out in the cold.  And people are doing all sorts of ‘optional’ surgery maybe-later, including things like circumcisions.
• State and local governments, desperate for money, are cancelling infrastructure road and bridges work right and left.   Institutional buyers are NOT interested in state construction bonds, period.
• Angry Sichuanese parents are honked off at the government and are suing over the loss of 10,000 schoolchildren and demanding apologies and compensation; the local officials built shoddy schools in an earthquake zone and pocketed the difference in kickbacks from the contractors.

Note: the probable results from the  government on this is to stomp them or send them to prison or both, with little mercy.  Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo (中华人民共和国) - Renmin being the ‘Peoples’ term from the People’s Republic of China, and the short term I use often here for the corrupt apparatchiks of the Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng (中国共产党) (Communist Party of China) who are so totally wrapped up in guānxi (connections/influence) and payoffs.  Corruption is rampant, the Party does nothing, and the rich get richer while the little guys and the minorities get to eat dirt.   I have little use for the nomenclatura, and consider them a bane on the backs of the Chinese people.

Old and “future” Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority maps.    Good also for alternate history types who want non-present stuff and map / mass transit fans everywhere.

Looks like the Ohio DOT is finally getting rid of the US-35 traffic lights in Greene County between Dayton and Xenia.

When I was little, there were two seriously weird expressways-with-traffic-lights situations in the area - on US-25 / I-75 north of the city in Northridge, not far from a home I had on North Dixie Drive, and these traffic lights on US-35.

The ones north of the city got to be hideously notorious as a major accident magnet, and it took them freaking forever to build the overpasses on I-75 to eliminate those things.

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Ohio Department of Transportation has a whole bunch of map information online; some of them are in MrSid versions, and some in TIFF.  If you need help with those, ask, and I can recommend converters.

• Their basic state (and localities) maps are here.  You can also request a printed map for free online.
• The historical maps, in MrSid format, going back to 1912, are here.
• County maps (TIFF format) are here.

Probably of utterly no interest to most of you, but there’s been a recent series in Daytonology on the development of the east side of Dayton, which is my home town.  I spent - well, from 3rd grade till I graduated from college on that side of town, and it’s the Olde Home for me, I guess.  In any event, the links are after the cut:

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