As usual, “The One” misses the target and Ramirez does not. With the GDP in the cellar, the chief executive of the country goes bike riding and golfing. Like the sports panelists say on ESPN Football pre-game show, C’mon, man!

The Dow Jones Index closed below 10,000 today. The Administration and Congress not only wreck the economy but they spook business as well. C’mon November . . .

A workman from SoCal Edison installed a new SmartConnect™ electric meter on our residence today. The power outage was only a few seconds after the workman waited until the computers could be shut down. Other than resetting a couple of clocks, there was not much impact to us.

According to the brochure (pdf), the new meter eliminates the need for meter readers, since it communicates with the power company to report usage data. It’s sorta big-brotherish too, because of the two-way communications implications and wireless connection to “smart” appliances in the household. I’m not saying they will do it, but there is a real possibility that they will be able to shut off your air conditioning and other stuff. Given the current nanny attitudes state and federal officials have, we could be headed there.

From the brochure:

Smart meters collect hourly energy use data for the home and are capable of two-way communication. This means they can send and receive energy use and cost information from the home to the utility and back again, all through a secure wireless network.

Smart meters are also equipped with wireless radio chips inside to support home area networking. This will make it possible for the meter to communicate with “smart” appliances and devices, such as smart thermostats and refrigerators.

Emphasis mine.

In addition to Toyota’s accelerator pedal vehicle recall, there may be additional problems in the Prius’ brake system.

From the OC Register:

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said today that it is opening a formal investigation into problems with brakes on the 2010 Prius hybrid.

The probe, the agency said, is “to look into allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while traveling over an uneven road surface, pothole or bump.

The news comes a day after the car’s brakes were put into question in several media reports and the Japanese government ordered the automaker to look into the issue. Of course, this latest news comes amid two recalls for millions of cars worldwide over unintended acceleration.

The guy in the cartoon (old hippie-lookin’ dude) reminds me of another Prius driver I posted about here for having an unusual paint job . . .

Here’s the results of the last five trading days. Obama attacks Banking and Business in the State of the Union campaign speech and in the days before.

Mr. President, Tear Down This Rhetoric . . .

Reaction from the Blogosphere:

The State of the Union Is No ‘Reset’ Button - Karl Rove

If the criticism of you is that you’re all talk and no action, I’m not sure that a long speech is really going to help, no matter how emphatically you deliver it. - Jim Geraghty

The public thinks Obama doesn’t get it; Obama thinks the public doesn’t get it. - Rich Lowry

Here he goes again with his bank penalization idea!!!!!!!! Every time he opens his yap, my mutual funds take a nosedive! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SHUT UP!!! - Nicki @ The Liberty Zone

2 Words to Describe Obama Speech . . . YOU LIE! - Anthony @ The Liberty Sphere

There was no “pivot to the center,” no serious accounting for the Massachusetts miracle or his misfortunes. Instead, there was an innumerate, inaccurate and distinctly unpresidential whine — blaming George W. Bush for nearly all of his problems (leaving out, among other things, that the Democrats have been controlling Congress and crafting budgets since 2006). - Jonah Goldberg

Just across the border in Arizona, you can save 17 percent - or more on gasoline. I bet the folks living in Blythe, CA, drive to Ehrenberg, AZ, to top off the old tank.

This week, I received an email advising me that the DirecTV rates were going to increase next month. I guess that times being what they are, that I’m OK with the new rate. However, when I clicked on the link to see the new rates, they sent me to this helpful and informative document (tongue-in-cheek, of course):

C’mon, DirecTV . . . how about posting a readable rate chart showing old vs. new rates and something to indicate which package applies to me?

I wonder if Dish® Network does the same crap.

Click image to enlarge.

A unique graphic approach to visualizing a trillion bucks can be seen here.

More amusing visualizations:

A stack of 100 dollar bills totaling a trillion dollars would stand 740 miles high.

A stack of one dollar bills totaling a trillion dollars would stand 74,000 miles high, or 30% of the distance to the Moon.

If you string a trillion $1 bills end-to-end, you would get a belt of bills about 90 million miles long. That would reach past Mars’s orbit in one direction and in the other direction, would almost reach the Sun.

Hat tip to National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg.

UPDATE: Thanks to Robb Allen for the link.

Last month, we finally had our landline telephone service discontinued. I called AT&T to inform them that their services were no longer needed since we each now have a personal wireless device that does everything (and much more) than their service can provide.

I was reluctant, at first, to discontinue the service, since it has been our telephone number since before 1979 - we kept the same number from the previous owner when we moved here.

But, after doing all the trade-offs, it just had to be done.

Then, after all the smoke settled, I got this fantastic refund from the accounts payable folks at AT&T. Woo Woo. Where will I spend all this money? Maybe a lead 7½ shot ball in a 12 gauge shell? Yeah! That’s a great idea!

Going through the electronic photo album, I ran across this image of “Bear,” our Lab-Shep family companion. She just finished her “Frosty-Paws” doggie ice cream treat and rolled onto her back in her characteristic gesture of contentment. After a tough week on Wall Street, this is something we should all do - have some fun and be contented. Click the image for big.

Some of the green initiatives that keep coming across the media just don’t make any sense, like the example below:

Maybe the Director of Green should read some of our Global Warming and Climate Resources for some facts about the environment.

This is quite interesting (emphasis added) . . .

“[Barack] Obama… blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the ‘trickle-down’ economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend. But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions. Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties. The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but ‘predatory.’ Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the ‘90s by Clinton and his social engineers.” —Investor’s Business Daily

Democrats these days are behaving like a little kid that broke something, who tries to shift the blame to a sibling or the dog.

Hat tip to The Patriot Post.

Cross-posted at The Wandering Minstrel.

UPDATE: Related post at RWN: Financial Crisis - Dems Try to Rewrite History