Andrew's Wednesday Shout Outs...

A quick shout about current events and random thoughts...

Tap Dancing Tom

If you read DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin's piece on AGIA in the Monday ADN, that sound you heard was him tap dancing right off the tired three year old script he's been singing about how AGIA is a good business deal and no negotiations with the producers will be necessary. 

Hold the shim sham shimmy Tom, you've got exactly 46 days to fill your AGIA pipeline or we get to say "I told you so" and then all hell breaks loose. 

Coming Around

The battle of the sea ports spilled into the press this week with former Mayor Rick Mystrom touting the Port MacKenzie expansion and former Governor and Anchorage Port Director Bill Sheffield saying it would never pencil out.

Sheffield told the ADN that there likely wouldn't be enough business at Port MacKenzie to justify the expense.

That's funny; I said that exact same thing to Sheffield twelve years ago about the $28 million Anchorage Airport rail depot he wanted to build; which is now mothballed most of the year. 

Censing The Unemployed

The U.S. economy continues to show sluggish growth with only 41,000 new private sector positions added in May out of the 431,000 new jobs. The vast majority of new jobs were temporary U.S. Census positions.

I'm guessing after the census effort is complete, these folks can count themselves among the unemployed.

Eat Your Vegitables or Else

An Australian restaurant started demanding that customers finish their entire meal or be forever prohibited from dining at the establishment again.

I've heard of restaurants in this economy cutting back on menu ingredients to save money, but cutting back on doggie bags?

Welcome to Fiscal Armageddon

This week the federal debt passed the $13 trillion mark. If you earned a dollar a second, it would take 416,000 years to pay it off.

In addition, that doesn't cover the unfunded liabilities of $65 trillion between Social Security and Medicare. In order to cover the debt, the U.S. would have to raise taxes to 88% on the rich and 63% on the middle class just to keep up with current spending.

Brother can you spare a dime, thirteen gazillion times?

Creative Energy

Due to a prolonged drought, Venezuela's hydroelectric dam that supplies 75% of it's electricity has been struggling. In response, President Hugo Chavez has ordered the clocks turned back thirty minutes in the morning to extend daylight.

No word yet about Chavez trying to nationalize the sun or the rain.

Economist Quotes of the Week

On the Republican right wing - "Too much anger and too few ideas."

On President Barack Obama - "Obama will be judged on the success of his own big bets, not on somebody else's oil spill."

mmmm