Tam over at View from the Porch lost her feline companion tonight, and could use your thoughts and prayers. Up your karma and give her some love.

OK, so the Congress voted down the recovery bill as it was originally constructed. The market fell 777 points, and the sky should be coming down any time now. Zombies will be walking the streets in the near future, and dogs and cats are starting to live together.

Here’s my advice on how to get through this:

1. Keep your head and your money in the game. The people who made money during the Great Depression were the ones who kept their money in the market. Don’t cash out your 401k and keep the money in your mattress. You only lose money if you cash out too early.
2. Don’t switch jobs anytime soon. Noone knows at the moment how this is going to shake out, but I think it’s safe to say that if layoffs happen, the new guy is probably the first to go.
3. Don’t plan on buying a new house or car anytime soon. Unless you can almost pay cash for the darned thing, odds are the bank is going to charge an enormous amount to borrow if they’ll lend to you at all. Get cozy in your home, and keep doing the maintenance on your car.
4. Pay down your debt as much as you can. If the worst happens, the less debt you have the better.
5. Stock up on canned food and shotguns. I’m just saying.

I was introduced to Kentucky politics in 2002. It stuck me how quickly and how deeply negative the various campaigns became. I had been exposed to negative campaigning before, but this was something else. The ads became extremely personal and nasty very early in the campaign. It didn’t seem to be the desperate act of failing campaigns because campaigns that were comfortably ahead in the polls were just as bad.

I decided very early that I wouldn’t listen to negative campaign ads. I may watch them for the entertainment value, but I refuse to take any of their assertions into consideration when I’m deciding how to vote.

In 2004 and 2006, I tried to figure out which party was the most negative, or who seemed to throw the first mudball. I gave up in both endeavors. Both major parties shamelessly sling mud at each other, and neither seems to go nastier or earlier than the other.

Here’s the deal, folks: Convince me to vote the way you want me to by describing what’s good about your candidate or your cause. Tell me what good is going to come from your victory, not what evil will come from your defeat. Don’t waste your money and breath telling me how your opponent tortures baby goats under a full moon. Tell me how you are going to enforce the laws, secure the country, keep your meathooks off of the majority of my money, and how you’re going to be a good steward of the money that I do pay in taxes.

Negative ads don’t convince me to not vote for the other guy, the lead me to believe that you don’t deserve my vote.

OK, folks. We’ve got two choices:

1. We let the market flow freely, with a high probability that huge chunks of it will bottom out due to very poor investing on the part of the “smart people”. The economy will probably go into a tailspin for at least a couple of years, and things will get much worse before they get better.

2. The federal government steps in, buys up all of that bad debt, and keeps us out of of a deep recession. All of the “smart people” get to keep their high paying jobs, and probably come out of all this at least as rich as they are now. We will probably go into a recession anyhow, but in the short term it won’t be as bad as it could have been. Our national deficit goes up at least another trillion dollars or two. Our children, grand children, and great-grandchildren will be paying for this.

Personally, I don’t see a good choice here. I believe in free markets, but I don’t want to see the economy circle the drain for a decade because of greed and bad judgement. But I also don’t want the government to continue its habit of keeping the terminally stupid in the black.

And Mommy.

Baby Bear appears to be very close to having his first tooth. He was very cranky last night, and woke up last night very snarfly and fussy. We thought he might have caught my cold, so the Irish Woman took him into the doctor this morning. Doctor ruled out a cold, and found the lump in his gums.

Soon, he’ll have his first ankle biting implement. Until then, I’m a zombie shuffling through my day.

Well, this weekend was a toss-up.

Woke up Saturday morning, and felt like dirt warmed over. The Irish Woman “convinced” me to go to the doctor. $15 for the doctor and $75 for the anti-biotics and antihystamines later, I went back to bed and slept through most of the rest of the day.

Had to drive through the Ryder Cup traffic to get to the doctor. Must send a thank you card to the city fathers for the crowd in my front yard.

Sunday was a better day. Woke up too late to go to church, but did go to Knob Creek in the afternoon. The muzzleloader still put 3 rounds in a 10 inch circle at 100 yards, but I had a hell of a time with the Mosin. I had to aim at the dirt three feet in front of the target in order to graze the top. If I aimed center mass, I was hitting the hill behind the target.

When I got home and cleaned the Mosin, I figured out why. I recently removed the LER scope and mount that I had on it and returned to iron sites. I put the leaf spring on the rear site in upside down, and that was forcing the rear site up about an inch too high. High rear site forced a much higher than expected point of impact. I corrected the error and the site looks like it’s supposed to. Should have caught that when I put it in the first time.

Got to spend some time with Junior Bear and Baby Bear. Also caught the first quarter of the Dallas/Green Bay game.

Overall, the weekend was a wash. Lost most of Saturday to either the doctor’s office or sleep, but had a pretty good Sunday.

H/T to Blackfive for a good laugh on a Monday morning.

Reminds me of when the CNN and AP reporters had to go through winter training at Wildflicken at the same time we did so they could cover military units in Bosnia.

Half of them lost their voice from bitching about how cold they were, and the other half got treated as heat casualties when they wore 16 layers, including their bear suits, during the 1 mile walk from the chow hall to the training area.

The Canadian agricultural minister apparently doesn’t know that you don’t make jokes about people dieing.

Dude, please remember that everything you say will be held against you. Don’t joke about people dieing from food poisoning, and for the love of God don’t hope that one of the casualties is one of your opponents.

Woke up this morning feeling pretty low. My allergies had kicked me right between the twins.

A long shower. two Aleve, a Claritin, and a cup of coffee later, I at least felt human. Spending time feeding Baby Bear and listening to him growl between mouthfuls helped my attitude.

Had to drive through the traffic for the Ryder Cup. Took 45 minutes to drive the 5 minutes to the freeway.

Got Junior Bear and Girlie Bear over to a friend’s house for the day. Still no school, we’ll find out on Sunday night if they go back on Monday.

Because of traffic, didn’t get to the office until almost 9 AM, so I had to park in the remote lot. The long walk gave me a lot of time to think about why I came to work at all.

Got to the top of the stairs in our building, and the smell of rotten eggs greeted me. Luckily for me, everyone else can smell it too. Either a pipe has broken somewhere, or someone shipped something they shouldn’t have.

I’ve spent the morning doing small work and drinking more coffee. Hopefully the afternoon will go well.

This weekend should be OK. I’m working a fund raiser for Girlie Bear’s PTA tomorrow morning, and I’m planning on going to the range on Sunday after church.