I spent a lot of time today doing research across the web trying to keep the lovecda Snow Day article updated with the latest information coming from official sources. In that time I came across a lot of busy sites, a lot of poorly designed sites, a lot of sites that just weren't working, and a few sites that just made me question what in the world was going on.

One of these was the flightview.com site. There I saw one of the most interesting bits of information I'd seen all day.

The Spokane Airport (GEG) has a little green star next to it, indicating departure status "Normal" Yet right below it was showing that 50% of the departures were late and the other 50% were very late. Arrivals were 40% On time, 30% late and 30% very late. That's considered "NORMAL" for the Spokane airport?!! Holy hell.

I've flown out of Spokane many times so I can't argue with this data--flights do seem to constantly leave late compared to other airports. But still, to have those types of stats listed as normal is a pretty dismal testament to your efficiency.

Compare that to Boise right now (no screenshot you're just going to have to trust me on this one). BOI has a red star right now for "Major Delays" but more than 40% of Boise's arrivals are on time, about 25% very late, and the rest late. Boise's departures are about 65% on time.

Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

"We just wanted to choose a really large number," said a Treasury spokeswoman to Brian Wingfield and Josh Zumbrun of Forbes.com.

Well it's nice to know that our nation's financial future is based on nothing more than the whim of politicians and numbers pulled out of thin air just because they sound impressive. I'm impressed. That's enough to give every tax filer in the country more than $5000¹ in tax refunds! More than $7500 could be returned to each taxpayer. Think of how well that would stimulate the economy! How many mortgage payments could you make with $7500? How many of your credit cards could you pay off with $7500 in tax relief? Think you could figure out a better way to spend that money than the politicians? I think we could.

$9,950,000,000,000.00 that's a lot of zeroes. To steal a quote from the television show, Frasier, "you haven't seen so many zeroes lined up since Mr. Spock had a book signing." That was what the national debt stood at this morning when I looked at it. Now the politicians in Washington want to increase that number by 7% to 10,650,000,000,000.00 overnight?

It's insanity. It's absolute craziness to consider throwing untold amounts of money at a problem most politicians can barely wrap their minds around. All this just needs to stop. We need to get back to the root of this problem, which is out of control spending! We run around like drunken yuppies spending piles of electronic money we just don't have. I'm talking about the individuals of this nation as well as the government. We've allowed credit to completely overrun our quality of life and it's coming back to bite us in the butt big time.

The Weather service has issued its first Freeze Warning of the 2008 Fall.

So watch out for your gardens tonight, you don't want to let your veggies get frostbitten! Some plants, like Tomatoes don't need freezing weather before they have problems. Tomatoes plants become damaged with temperatures as warm as 45 degrees.

Supposedly the weather's going to improve for the rest of the week so you won't have to worry about the freezing weather again for a little while.