I'm going to resist the obvious comment about this

And I'm going to try really hard not to laugh:

Alaska budget reserve suffers billion-dollar loss

Because Department of Revenue officials plowed a big chunk of the Constitutional Budget Reserve into stocks shortly before the meltdown started, the state suffered the same kind of stinging losses many Americans have experienced in their personal retirement portfolios.

Revenue officials, as well as state legislators who encouraged the stock investments in hopes of generating bigger profits, acknowledge their timing was dreadful.

But they're hoping the market rebounds in coming years and the bet pays off over the long haul.

Others say they're concerned about further losses for the budget reserve, which legislators might have to tap as soon as this year to help balance the state budget.

"Are we still at risk for going down the tubes further?" asked Rep. Harry Crawford, an Anchorage Democrat and member of the House Finance Committee.

[snip]

During last year's legislative session, lawmakers had a huge stack of surplus dollars on hand because of a run of record-high oil prices, so they put more than $4 billion into the Constitutional Budget Reserve as savings.

Instead of parking the money in the reserve's conservative investment account, it was shifted to a subaccount that's invested more aggressively in stocks.

That subaccount had a market value of about $4.5 billion in the summer. But with the stock market crash, its value has plunged to $3.5 billion -- meaning a $1 billion loss, said Jerry Burnett, the state's deputy revenue commissioner.

Well, now we know why Sarah Palin is already laying the groundwork for a presidential run -- because that's the only way she's going to be able to get her hands on some more of those nice designer duds given her state's fiscal condition.

But the reason this isn't a laughing matter, as tempting as it is to post a picture of Nelson from The Simpsons taunting "HA-ha!" is because Alaska's native population in towns like Emmonak are hurting badly, even without their state's government squandering the state's budget reserve.

I can't wait to hear Evita Mooselini go touring the country promising to do for the rest of the country what she's done for Alaska. You betcha. And I can't wait to hear how she explains to Joe the Plumber that she supported the stimulus bill to make up for her colossal mismanagement of "her" state.

Ocean Room, Sydney

Soft shell crab tacos Spiced, crispy fried served with pickled vegetables and crispy wafersSoft shell crab tacos. You may as well substitute those four words with "heaven in every mouthful". And whilst soft shell crab seem to be as ubiquitous as pork belly on restaurant menus, I think that Raita Noda's version is one of the best.Once his signature dish at former restaurant Rise (a dish I first

Fear of anything that smacks of socialism is going to drive us into another Great Depression

When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down, conventional wisdom called it a triumph of capitalism over socialism, and proof that socialism was by its very nature unworkable.

Tell that to Sweden, or to any Western European nation that has things like universal health care that here in this country we respond to by holding up the garlic and crosses and screaming "Socialism!!" Perhaps it's because most of the people who run our financial system and our government are either old Cold Warriors or remember the air raid drills of the 1960's, in which as schoolchildren, we would assemble in hallways and stand facing the wall with our arms "protecting" our heads from nuclear blast. Or perhaps it's our unfortunate tendency towards black-and-white thinking, in which all that is not mandatory must therefore be regarded as forbidden unless we make it mandatory (see also: organized school prayer), all that is not forbidden must therefore be regarded as mandatory unless we make it forbidden (see also: abortion); and every aspect of capitalism must always be regarded as superior to every aspect of socialism.

If free-market capitalism involves the privatization of profit and the socialization of risk in a rigged system, and if it means a Saudi-owned bank receiving a federal bailout can still put its name on a baseball stadium and send its former CEO, his wife, and his adult children, on an expensive vacation, perhaps we need to look at leavening this doctrine with a little good old fashioned socialism that benefits more than just bank executives.

This isn't a question of extolling the virtues of socialism over capitalism as an overall system. But our fear of even mentioning policies that might spread the wealth along with the risk cause such a knee jerk response, as if Americans are all like Fred Thompson, still talking about containing Soviet expansionism. This kind of knee-jerk thinking has brought us a health care system that's collapsing even if rich people and politicians aren't yet aware of it because THEIR health coverage and care is just fine, thank you very much. This refusal to acknowledge that free market capitalism has its limitations and socialism has its virtues gave us AIG and Citigroup and Bank of America and John Thain and Richard Fuld and Bernie Madoff. This refusal allowed a moron like Sarah Palin to whip her minions into a frenzy simply by calling Barack Obama a socialist.

But if refusing to even consider anything that has even the faint whiff of socialism means that Americans are going to be on the hook for trillions of dollars while getting nothing -- not even jobs -- in return, then I think it's time to admit that being hamstrung by continuing to want to fight the Cold War is as counterproductive as fighting the Civil War in perpetuity, and that continuing to shovel money into the pockets of those who are exploiting that fear of socialism is a triumph of putting rigid ideology over the future of this country.

Krugman:

“We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we’d like to do our best to preserve that system,” says Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary — as he prepares to put taxpayers on the hook for that system’s immense losses.

Meanwhile, a Washington Post report based on administration sources says that Mr. Geithner and Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser, “think governments make poor bank managers” — as opposed, presumably, to the private-sector geniuses who managed to lose more than a trillion dollars in the space of a few years.

And this prejudice in favor of private control, even when the government is putting up all the money, seems to be warping the administration’s response to the financial crisis.

Now, something must be done to shore up the financial system. The chaos after Lehman Brothers failed showed that letting major financial institutions collapse can be very bad for the economy’s health. And a number of major institutions are dangerously close to the edge.

So banks need more capital. In normal times, banks raise capital by selling stock to private investors, who receive a share in the bank’s ownership in return. You might think, then, that if banks currently can’t or won’t raise enough capital from private investors, the government should do what a private investor would: provide capital in return for partial ownership.

But bank stocks are worth so little these days — Citigroup and Bank of America have a combined market value of only $52 billion — that the ownership wouldn’t be partial: pumping in enough taxpayer money to make the banks sound would, in effect, turn them into publicly owned enterprises.

My response to this prospect is: so? If taxpayers are footing the bill for rescuing the banks, why shouldn’t they get ownership, at least until private buyers can be found? But the Obama administration appears to be tying itself in knots to avoid this outcome.

If news reports are right, the bank rescue plan will contain two main elements: government purchases of some troubled bank assets and guarantees against losses on other assets. The guarantees would represent a big gift to bank stockholders; the purchases might not, if the price was fair — but prices would, The Financial Times reports, probably be based on “valuation models” rather than market prices, suggesting that the government would be making a big gift here, too.

And in return for what is likely to be a huge subsidy to stockholders, taxpayers will get, well, nothing.

I suppose that when you put Geithner and Summers in charge, this is what you're going to get. But I fail to see how a huge bailout with zero accountability is going to solve anything, other than where Sandy Weill is going to go for his next company-paid vacation.

Sunday cooking blogging: Spinach, Chicken and Ricotta Tortelloni

These tortelloni are surprisingly easy to make. They aren't quite "official" tortelloni, because the dough is square instead of round, and because I used wonton skins instead of semolina pasta dough. But they work well enough, and they're easy.

The filling:

4 oz. cooked chicken. I used the frozen cooked chicken from Trader Joe's.
1/2 bag frozen chopped spinach
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
16-oz. container ricotta (I used fat free and it worked fine)
Grated parmesan cheese, about 3-4 tablespoons
salt & pepper to taste.

Defrost the spinach and squeeze out excess moisture. Cut chicken into chunks.
Heat some olive oil in a frypan and lightly saute the garlic with the spinach. Remove from heat and put in food processor with the chicken. Pulse until well chopped, almost to a paste. Remove from food processor and add ricotta, parmesan, salt, pepper. Mix till well blended.

To make the tortelloni, open a package of wonton skins. On each skin, brush all 4 edges with beaten egg. Put about 1 rounded teaspoon of filling in the center. Fold into a triangle, press to seal, then press the two sealed edges again with a fork. Squeeze out all air pockets if you can. Then pinch the long center to wrap the points as shown. What you end up with will look like a wonton. Put a damp towel over the finished tortelloni until you're ready to cook them. Save whatever filling you have left to make chicken florentine later in the week.

To cook, boil water in a wok or similar pan. Add tortelloni gently and simmer -- do not rolling boil -- about 3 minutes. Remove from pot with slotted spoon.

These are good with just some good marinara sauce and freshly grated parmesan.

More Blogroll Amnesty Day celebration

Godly Fumugation.

Prin (even though she did completely misunderstand my post about the GOP because of its inflammatory title. Hey, I have family in the south, and my impression is that at least in the Research Triangle area, it's less segregated and more enlightened than up here. Doesn't change the fact that the GOP is more and more relegated to those parts of the deep south where they still think Jim Crow was the good old days.)

Scholars and Rogues

Soft Skull Press.

Fallenmonk.

If you go, you know

Yes, that's the slogan for Jamaica tourism, but the same could be said about Trader Joe's:

This funny song alludes to "things they don't have anymore." This is perhaps my one beef with Trader Joe's -- that for someone like me, who tends to buy 100 of everything because I know for certain that the minute I like something, they'll stop making it, this habit they have of discontinuing items can be nerve-wracking. I recently had such a scare with the Thai rice stick noodles, but fortunately it was just a question of my store being out. But the canned garbanzos in curry sauce are, alas, history forever.

As time goes on, I find myself buying more at Trader Joe's and less elsewhere. Whether it's organic milk and eggs, Greek yogurt, that lowfat chocolate yogurt that's stir-from-the-bottom and isn't quite chocolate pudding but is yummy in its own right, those one-at-a-time bananas, bread, and frozen vegetables, in addition to the more exotic stuff, Trader Joe's is gradually encroaching into my supermarket runs to the point that Shop-Rite only sees me every two weeks or so instead of every week, and the local overpriced A&P is pretty much just a 7-11 these days.

But if they ever discontinue those little disks of frozen mashed potatoes that microwave up into better mashed than you can make at home, then you'll see real hue and cry and rending of garments.

(h/t Hoffmania)

Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Special Blogroll Amnesty Commemorative Weekend Edition

Because it's Super Bowl Sunday and the first 10 seconds of this Doritos ad running today...

...may be enough to turn me into one of those feminist bloggers who usually hate me because I'm usually not as offended by this sort of thing as perhaps I should be, and because it's Blogroll Amnesty Weekend, today we're going to see what some of the undeservedly underviewed corners of Blogtopia (and yes, Skippy coined that phrase, as well as the lovely banner above) are up to.

This morning I was watching Blog Wars, the documentary about bloggers and Ned Lamont's primary campaign against Holy Joe Lieberman in 2006. I've seen this before, and I never cease to be irritated by the notion that anyone can start blogging and have 50,000 page views a day within six months by sheer dint of hard work. Those who have been able to do so who are not some of the early adopters who have pulled up the ladder behind them are often those with either recognizable names or very good connections -- and an independent income that doesn't involve being an employee of a corporation. But all over the place there are people like me -- cube rats who get up at 4 or 5 AM to dash off something before sitting in traffic for up to an hour, working all day, sitting in traffic again, and then doing the whole dinner/cleanup thing before collapsing in front of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow before going to bed to do it all again the next day.

I'm not knocking gainful employment. God knows I wake up every morning and after cursing the darkness I bless the fates that got me a job with perhaps the only major corporation in the world that actually seems to value its employees and can manage to conduct "team-building" events that don't make me gag, and where I have a supervisor who's not only brilliant but confident enough in her own intelligence that she doesn't have to make herself feel better by belitting her staff. It's a refreshing change, and one that I actually get paid for. If I were blogging all day, it would mean I have no income, and that would be a less-than desirable state of affairs, especially these days. But don't tell me that the reason you have more traffic than I do is simply because you work harder.

Anyway, the point is that while the Big Boys 'n' Girls tend to suck up all the oxygen in the world, there are some damn fine writers and passionate people out there who are worth just as much credit as the big names, and they usually don't get it. So the whole point of this blogger holiday was to recognize that no matter how little you may have, even if it's just blog traffic, it always feels better to share. And so we shall.

I'm not sure you can really appreciate the zen of Ripcoco unless you know Melina personally, as I do. Melina cross-posts much of her sociopolitical writings here, but this frenetically busy woman also manages to find time to care for a houseful of birds, any number of small yappy dogs, and a flock of chickens, as well as a sullen but ferociously intelligent 15-year-old. If all you read of her stuff is what's here, you're missing a unique perspective on a unique American life. Today she focuses on what this blogger holiday means from the perspective of someone who grew up surrounded by people whose renown makes the Alpha Dogs of Blogging look like Milton in the Initech basement with the red stapler.

Dcap is one of my favorite long-form bloggers, and not just because he's a stupendously nice person. It's because the man can write about anything, and often pays attention to things that fly under the radar of many of us. It is to my eternal shame that I didn't recognize the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but I'm not sure I could have done better than he did.

You don't have to live in New Jersey's Pascack Valley to enjoy Pascack People (though it helps). But every region ought to have a gadfly like Mike Hogan, who is making a second career out of exposing every corrupt, lunatic, or just plain incompetent who's involved in local government. When the local shopper papers are in the pockets of the local apparatchiks, and the population at large doesn't seem to give a rat's ass, this suburban Diogenes is out there fighting for good government in the arena that affects most of our daily lives the most.

Go wish Ornery Bastard a belated happy birthday.


Mithras will be watching the game with the Drinking Liberally crowd in Philadelphia. So if you're there, go say hello. And if you see He Who Must Not Be Named, well, gee, there was this piece of chicken wing on the floor and you couldn't help spilling your beer on his head.

As a mom in Michigan, Ground Zero of the recession, Citizen Carrie has more than her share of tsuris to deal with, which is why we haven't heard much from her here lately. But it wouldn't kill you to take a few steps out of your way and visit her at her own digs.