Done yesterday (20111009 Su)

Another weekend day with what felt like very little done, though on reflection I actually did some things. I need to prioritize better, I suppose, given that I'm never going to have time for everything I want or even need to do.

Things that did get done include setting up the gateway to boot from its USB stick, getting bagels and cream cheese for lunch (the lox was the second half of the package Colleen bought at Costco the week before last), and another 3-mile walk on the Los Gatos Creek trail.

I'm pretty happy with the USB stick (which is actually an 8GB micro-SD card) -- it saves a couple of watts over the old laptop drive, and should be more reliable. Some additional work will be needed to get around the fact that it no longer includes a mirror of my websites and audio -- those will have to be reverse-proxied from the fileserver.

Oh, and a little work on chording and scripting for Tempered Glass material.

Anyway... I guess it was ok. Links, as usual, below in the notes.

( raw notes )

$16 trillion

Daily Kos: Where's Your $50,000? From Alan Grayson. Mr. Grayson is a former Congressman from Florida, currently running for his old seat back. I really hope he makes it. We need people who will speak this kind of truth.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that our Government has handed out $16 trillion to the banks.

Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. The GAO says that our Government HAS HANDED OUT $16 TRILLION TO THE BANKS.

That little gem appears on Page 131 of GAO Report No. GAO-11-696. A report issued two months ago. A report that somehow seems to have eluded the attention of virtually every network, every major newspaper, and every news show.

How much is $16 trillion? That is an amount equal to or more than $50,000 for every man, woman and child in America. That’s more than every penny that every American earns in a year. That’s an amount equal to almost a third of our national net worth -- the value of every home, car, personal belonging, business, bank account, stock, bond, piece of land, book, tree, chandelier, and everything else anyone owns in America. That’s an amount greater than our entire national debt, accumulated over the course of two centuries.

A $16 trillion stack of dollar bills would reach all the way to the Moon. And back. Twice.

That’s enough to pay for Saturday mail delivery. For the next 5,000 years.

All of that money went from you and me to the banks. And we got nothing. Not even a toaster.

I have been patiently waiting to see whether this disclosure would provoke some kind of reaction. Answer: nope. Everyone seems much more interested in discussing whether or not they like the cut of Perry’s jib.

Whatever a jib may be.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be writing more about this. But right now, I wanted to keep this really simple. Just give folks something to talk about when they’re standing next to the coffee maker.

The Government gave $16 trillion to the banks. And nobody else is talking about it. Think about it. Think about what that means.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

To put it another way, $16 trillion will buy enough gas to drive to Alpha Centauri and back. Twice.