Debt

Found this in Parade magazine this morning. Even that bastion of celebrity gossip occasionally has something worthwhile. Makes me wonder what the current national budget is, and how much the US collects in taxes each year, but it's Sunday, so I am going to take a nap.

Countries That Own the Most U.S. Debt

Japan	$585.9 billion
China	$541.0 billion
United Kingdom	$307.4 billion
OPEC Nations*	$179.8 billion
Caribbean banking centers**	$147.7 billion

Singing Atoms

Roberta X put up a post about the periodic table done to music. I found another video, same tune, different graphics.



Here's the lyrics if you want to follow along:

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

There's sulfur, californium, and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium.

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered.

You may also want to see the Table of Rejected Elements, or you may even want to see my version of the table,

Dividends

Periodically I write (via email) to my congressman complaining about one thing or another or, more likely, offering my enlightened solution for some global catastrophe. Because of the election I have been holding off, figuring they would be too busy with campaigning to really pay proper attention to my magnanimous suggestions.

I always have a list of things to badger them about, and the one item that had migrated to the top of my list was Verizon's Robocop automated phone support system. Just a few days ago my wife was trying to sort out some charges on our wireless bill and I could hear her yelling YES/NO/MAYBE SO at the machine. Today was bill paying day and the phone bill is more like $400 instead of the usual $300. So I gird my loins and prepare to do vocal battle with Robocop. Imagine my surprise when after a short recorded message I find myself talking to a real person. Shocked I was!

Someone turned on Vcast, which gets you video and/or web access to your phone. $65 for three phones. Tack that onto the $325 regular bill and we are close enough to $400 to sneeze. This bill is for everything:

• 4 cell phones with unlimited text messaging
• 1 land line
• high speed internet
• "cable" TV
• HBO
• (2) DVR (Digital Video Recorders)
• Taxes, fees, carrying charges, assessments, auxiliary license fees, etc. etc.

So I got Vcast turned off, told Kevin (the real person) how much I appreciated not having to deal with Robocop, and hung up. All done. Happy.

Now a real partisan would say that Obama made Verizon get rid of Robocop. I would never suggest such a thing, but it is a heck of a coincidence, eh?

Gone Bosco Gone

Walked down to Heaton Automotive this afternoon to pick up the Endeavor. On my way I walked by Peter Bosco Elementary School. Except. It wasn't there. Field of new grass where the school used to be. Walked by there this morning on my way home after dropping off the car. School was there this morning and this afternoon it was gone. Aliens must have come down and made off it. Right, sure, that's what happened.

I walk by that place every time I walk downtown and I never saw any indication that it was going away. Last time I walked by there, it was still there and still in use. Today it was gone. This morning I was just oblivious to fact that it was missing. Absolutely amazing. The blue outline on the map shows the building that was removed. A search on the web turned up nothing about it's being torn down. The school district still has a couple of web pages for the school, but it is not on their list of elementary schools anymore.

Peter Bosco School being demolished - Hillsboro Argus

Update November 2025 removed missing map. I suspect I inadvertently deleted it one of my mad purges. Add very blurry photo of the demolition.

Out Of Touch

Obama wins, McCain loses. Is the Presidential election a personality contest? A battle of advertising budgets?

Bush won not once, but twice. Did it really take a second term for people realize he was a bum? Or was his army of media experts more adept at smearing his opponent?

Was the outcome of this election due to the internet making a real impact and more younger (read internet savvy) people voting?

It will be interesting to see what the next four years will bring. Will there be any real change, or will Republican stupidity just be replaced by Democratic stupidity?

Slice Of Life

Being sick affected my mind. Made me realize I need to quit being such a flibberty-gibbet and stop pursuing whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. Need to pick a few things to work on. We'll see how well this works. I have been going through my old bookmarks, getting rid of the ones I don't use, checking on some obscure ones to see if they are worth keeping. I may have put a link to this before but I really don't remember. I think it's a Russian designers's site.

Nothing But Sticky

From Fair Maiden of the Mindful Blossom