My point is that you shouldn't be floating bonds to cover payroll. Something is amiss if a small business couldn't meet payroll without rushing out to find a loan somewhere. The assumption would be that if you had to borrow money to cover payroll, your business already had one foot in the grave. Why a big state like California has wedged itself into such a position, I don't know. I suspect they lack the political will to match revenue with expenses. Like many politicians, they want to give everybody a pay raise and put as many people on the payroll as possible without raising taxes. A short term way to do this would be to borrow the money rather than raise it through higher taxes. Now, however, it's biting them in the rear. They blame the credit crunch, but what's really going on is the smoke and mirror budget they passed last month.

This is the life story of about a quarter of the people I know. A few people knew from childhood what job the wanted. Others joined a family business. Lots and lots of others drifted around for a while. And almost everybody I knew that went into music walked a rough road. The LW shouldn't be too hard on herself. Work can be disappointing and dispiriting even if you aren't entering such a tricky field as singing.

To understand the high vice presidential debate ratings, consider that one of the highest rated sports programs of all time isn't a Superbowl, World Series or Stanley Cup. It's Nancy Kerrigan ice skating against Tanya Harding in the Oslo Olympics. People want to see what's going to happen. I'm not sure between Biden and Palin which one is Harding and which one is Kerrigan.

Don't beat around the bush or try to argue the person out of suicide. Ask him directly if he is considering suicide. You need to get the person plugged in to professional help. Despite what some people say, suicide isn't usually about losing money, it's about a disease called depression.

You can grow a nice garden because it's a fun and relaxing activity. You can grow a garden because you will know how the food for grown and if any pesticides were used. You can even grow specialty produce that's hard to find in stores. But you CANNOT save money by growing your own food. Competing with agribusiness is pretty tough when you don't have their economies of scale, expertise, equipment etc. You can't raise chicken, pigs or milk cows to save money either. Study your costs very closely and you will discover that even valueing your own time at ZERO, you can't beat prices at a good supermarket. Sad, but true. Pot is likely the only crop you can grow in your backyard at a profit, as long as you don't factor in law enforcement cost.

If you want to save money on food, there are smarter things that you can do besides gardening. As pointed out, gardening has many advantages including exercise, relaxation, socialization, spiritual rewards etc. Saving money, generally isn't one of them. To save money, plan your meals, pay more attention to nutrition than brand names, shop for in-season fruits and vegetables, buy fewer prepared foods, reduce the amount of meat you eat, shop at lower priced stores (even here in New Jersey, you can get excellent produce at stores not named Whole Paycheck). I read that you are buying $4 per pound tomatoes at Whole Foods, which tells me you could save a bundle on your food bill just by shopping smarter, rather than starting a garden. Gardening's great for many things, but if you want to save money on food, check a book out of the public library on efficient food shopping and preparation.

It's possible to be a Democrat and occaisionally be happy. Democrats don't always have to be morose. The stock market had its biggest one day gain ever. Let's celebrate tonight. We can go back to being miserable tomorrow. And then we get begin the depression. And the world will be destroyed by Global Warming and over population. And everything will fall apart. And you can't say we didn't warn you.

This Bradley effect things cracks me up when they accuse voters of "lying" to the pollster. The simple fact is that polls are wrong; in fact, they aren't even all the scientific.

There are scores of reasons polls are wrong from sloppy polling, to reliance on landlines, to small samples, to misworded questions, to indifferent responders.

Saying the poll is wrong because the voters lied is like a carpenter blaming the nails for bending.

The most common reasons for lying are people who tell the pollster anything off the top of their heads, people who play with the pollsters, people who are asked about things they don't really have an opinion about, people who avoid confrontation by telling the pollster whatever they think the pollster wants to hear.

If gasoline drops to $2.50 per gallon on election day, George Bush will easily get a third term.

Aspergers. Austism. ADD. ADHD. Bipolar. Borderline personality disorder. Obsessive-Compulsive. We seem to have a diagnosis for everyone. Will the last undiagnosed person please turn out the lights?

I wonder whether this trend toward diagnosing everyone reflects the greed of the pharameutical industry or the need of people to avoid individual responsibility.

Among the people I know, some call their parents every day. Some see them only on holidays. Some only every couple of years, if that. Unless the parents are in desperate medical straights, I can't see any need for an adult to make their parents into their best friends. The fact that this guy doesn't take much interest in his parents, dresses the way he wants, and doesn't follow the LW's rules for deportment, suggest to me that he's more mentally healthy than the LW.