WhimsyLand

An article written in 1999 states "more than 90 percent of users receive spam at least once a week, and almost 50 percent get spammed six or more times per week.".  How times have changed.  I checked my email server and found that I've received approximately 7,900 spam emails in the last 20 days.    I could avoid a lot of it by never listing my email address on my websites, but I like that people can click-and-email me.  Besides, I don't have to read more than 1% of the spam I receive, as it gets shuffled off to a Junk folder. 

Jubak has a sobering article called State of the Nation?  Broke.  The first problem is that even a "balanced budget" (which we haven't seen since the Clinton years) isn't really balanced.  All of the military spending for Iraq, now over $350 billion, isn't included in the budget because it's appropriated as "special requests".  That doesn't mean it doesn't drive up the national debt, of course.  The second problem is the recent trick of including Social Security payments in the numbers  —  these are dollars dedicated to the Social Security trust fund and should not be commingled with tax revenues.  With the budget calculation corrected for these two deceptions, the yearly deficit is now half a trillion dollars.  That's about $5,000 per family per year that the U.S. government is spending that it doesn't have.  As Jubak says, "the upcoming crisis is absolutely predictable", because all calculations of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security outlays to baby-boomers show that by 2030 all (100%) of government revenue will need to be used just to pay the interest on the debt.  The bad news is that well before this happens, the standard of living for all but the wealthy will decline, as the value of the dollar drops and interest rates rise.  The other bad news is that this enormous amount of debt is substantially held by foreign countries and their citizens.  This includes current and future adversaries, such as China and Southeast Asian nations.  Nothing less than the future of our nation (and our children) depends upon doing something to repair the economic damage.  What's the answer?  Raise taxes and/or reduce federal spending.  When's the last time a candidate was elected by promising to raise taxes?  For another look, see Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes, that demonstrates why almost 50% of the controllable federal budget goes to the military.

Hey, hey.  Ange Mlinko has a fine poem in Poetry.  Alice Oswald, whom I admire, and Albert Goldbarth share the issue.  More on that tomorrow.

Time's lead article is on the 2008 Presidential election, "the most most wide-open race since 1928".  Could somebody please cut off the funds for those creepy milk commercials where somebody famous has that ghoulish White-Out smeared on their upper lip?  William Shatner is obnoxious as ever in 10 Questions (a sample:  Time:  "... Claudia Christian ... accused you of once making advances".  Shatner:  "Well, who am I to tell a lady that she's a liar? ... I'm sure it was memorable for her, though.").  A U.N. panel of noted scientists are about to confirm that human activities are responsible for global warming.  Scooter Libby's new trial defense is that he's a sacrificial lamb to prevent Karl Rove's indictment.  A Dutch pet-shop owner has introduced beer for dogs.  Libya is going to lay off 400,000 government workers as it switches to a market economy.   Presidential aspirants are announcing earlier and earlier to get a jump on the $2 million per week they need to raise to become viable candidates.  Time's summary table of major candidates includes their popularity rating, recognition percentage, number of appearances in People magazine, and Amazon.com ranking of the last book they wrote.  Time is running out for the 300,000 Israelis who live in what most of the world considers Palestinian land.  While J. Crew, American Eagle, and Abercrombie & Fitch surge ahead, sales of The Gap (and Old Navy and Banana Republic) continue to slide.  Rage and catatonia are common among 20,000 inmates who reside in federal supermax prisons, where they are in isolation 23 hours a day and eat alone in a cell whose light cannot be turned off.  Among the many instances of animal homosexuality, sheep exhibit the highest percentages with 8% of all rams having sex exclusively with other rams.  A long article on the rudely hilarious Sarah Silverman who stars in her own sitcom in February (in one episode, she sleeps with God, who is black).  Women are taking to the slopes in increasing numbers.  The new supercharged $90,000 Jaguar XKR is the cat's meow. 

If you have a little more budgeted for a car, you should check out the $8 million Maybach, from the"ultra-luxury division" of Mercedes.  It's 19-feet long, weighs 6,000 pounds and goes almost 220 miles per hour.  Make sure to budget for gas, as well, because it gets 2.5 miles per gallon.  Other news from CNN:  In a reversal of the ratio of 40 years ago, women now account for 57% of all college graduates.  The highest federal mininum wage was in 1968, when it hit $9.27 in 2007 dollars.  Microsoft is threatening credit card companies by getting into the online payment business. "Dog Shit" was listed among the ingredients in a package of British cooked ham, prompting the firm to fire the employee responsible for the labeling prank. 

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Adam Clay has announced the birth of Typo 9 with poetry by Rachel Abramowitz, Jim Goar, Rebecca Loudon, Abraham Smith, Jen Tynes and others.

At the MMM Bash, I picked up the latest issue of Copper Nickel that Jake Adam York left (he's an editor).  There is a lot of good work in the journal, including poems by Gina Franco, Noah Eli Gordon, Matthea Harvey, Joshua Poteat, Mathias Svalina and others.  The collection is eclectic and highly readable.  Some lines from poems I liked:

Mathias Svalina, After Everything:  Before corn was the color of heron's beaks / I was a dormant husband. / My wife shook me to gurgle.

Joshua Poteat, From J. G. Heck's 1851 Pictorial Archive of Nature and Science, Mercury asleep and the pretty stars : I bring to this landscape a spotted liver, and a / house pulled from the sea.  I bring a weathervane, / weatherless with yeast, some dogs kicked in the / brain.

Noah Eli Gordon, from The Year of the Rooster:  What a rooster is /    stubborn alienation /   plundering cornfields /   fertile adornment

Alison Titus, Dead Letter Office: Besides the gaunt mule stumbling the thicket behind the factory. // Besides those outskirts of grief.  Then elsewhere.

Nicholas Reading, Dialogue with an Intruder:  Now that the door is kicked in we have plenty /   to talk about / with you stoned, me weak thinking that Grandmother's //    tea set / has fallen apart and give us plenty to talk about while / you reach

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I'd love to get a Wii and play the newest Zelda, but I've been trying to keep my priorities straight.  The Wii is still devilishly hard to find, except on the Internet.  One sells at eBay every couple of minutes for about $300, so somebody is getting them.