and lurkers. I am not much of a mall shopper to begin with, Warpy, but I will vouch for you. Lately the malls only have business on Friday (the young crowd and teens), Saturday (an actual cross section of serious shoppers), and Sunday (some shoppers some window shoppers). Forget restaurants-same story. I have noticed the good moderately priced local neighbourhood places are doing a bit better. The poor are going to the fast food places where their family or friends work and getting the employee discounts. Monday through Thursdays are ghost towns in most of these places-even in Houston-and we are better off than most.

Angry, hungry, unemployed people overthrow governments. And that's all I'll say about that.

I did talk to Mom last night and of course we got to politics. I told her I knew she was a proud Arizonian and I knew she would vote for McSame. And of course she started defending him. She knows that I preferred McCain over Bush in 2000 (I still voted Gore) so she's not too upset. I told her it didn't matter to me who won because this year I would make history either way I voted. She paused for a minute then cracked up. I went on to say that I was a yeller dog democrat this year. She figured as much. But one thing we did agree on-she came down really hard on Greenspan and Bernanke. She isn't one to follow the economy much but she had choice words to say about Greenspan (pompous geriatric ass comes to mind-she's in her 70's BTW) and Bernanke (diddling twit). Ya gotta love her.

So guys-put your BS ear protectors on...

Happy hunting and watch out for the bears.