Giving crazy a bad name

"With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine. By God's will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future."

-- Iran president Ahmadinejad, on Israel

Because the—all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases.
There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those—changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be—or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the—like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate—the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those—if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.
---U.S. President Bush, trying to explaining his plan to save Social Security,
Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005

Shouldn't these guys be out on a street corner in tinfoil headgear, shouting at traffic?


We have suffered a bit of computer meltdown at home so posting will be light for the next few weeks, but stay tuned -- once we get things up and running again, I have a huge multipart post on race and immigration in Canada planned, and my new shipmate over at the good ship Galloping Beaver, Alison, wants me to finished the Execution sketch.

My big break
I've been asked by the proprieters (well, Dave anyways -- maybe this is his little practical joke on the others to make sure they miss him while he's on vacation) to help blogsit over at The Galloping Beaver for a couple of weeks. I'll be joining Allison from Creekside and West End Bound from Moving to Vancouver in keeping an eye on things over there. The Galloping Beaver draws a lot more hits than the Woodshed, so this could be my ticket out of the blogging ghetto -- I'll try to remember all you little people kindly when I become a big blogging star and get invited to the big blogging ethics panels on CNN. In the meantime, anything I post there I will also crosspost here. The Woodshed will still offer some exclusive content in the form of book and music reviews.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Some updating going on in the blogroll and elsewhere. We bid a sorrowful adieu to three fantastic blogs: Michael Berube, Billmon's Whisky Bar and I am Eating My Husband's Soul. All three seem to have retired from the blogosphere and we are all the poorer for it. Prof. Berube, as a prominent academic and semiprofessional pundit, can still be read here and there, and we can only pray that Billmon will come back someday (or that the New York Times will come to its senses and use him to replace the odious David Brooks) ---I don't know what happened to the author of I am Eating My Husband's Soul, but I suspect legal trouble with the Denny's chain could conceivably been involved.
In their place, we bring you Indexed, where you can find math and chart comedy along the lines of the this:



A list of good Japan blogs is in the making and I'm also looking into adding a list of podcasts, so if you have suggestions, by all means leave them in the comments.

Additionally, we have joined Blogshares -- a sort of stock market game where blogs are substituted for companies. Dave Monroe of the must-read Dave's Snarky Northern Canadian Blog (see blogroll) has generously given me his holdings in The Woodshed, which I will be splitting with him as long as he doesn't mind me trying to acquire a few more shares in his joint. So click on the link and come and drive up the share price --- we'll all get rich I tell ya! Fabulously wealthy!