Me (Vancouver WA):

My parents (Bradenton FL):

My sisters (Charlotte NC):

My brother (Atlanta):

My sister-in-law (Maryville TN):

My aunt and uncle (Mt. Pleasant MI):

J.’s Aunt (Plymouth MN):

My other sister-in-law (Pleasant Hill CA):

Sure, California looks nice, if it weren’t for the drought.

The tornadoes that are going wild across the Midwest may mean we have a lighter hurricane season this year.

But boy scouts are dying and people are being made homeless across the country, while FEMA still hasn’t learned the lessons of Katrina.

It’s beginning to look like the dustbowl turned inside-out: horrific economic times, and people losing their homes and livelihoods not only foreclosure and recession but to extreme weather as well. It’s just mostly wet, instead of bone-dry.

Economics professor Dr. Ravi Batra believes the U.S. goes through approximately 30 year economic cycles; while the oil crunch feels like the 70s, what we’re seeing in the greater economy looks more like the 1930s.

If BushCo wasn’t so keen on privatization and fattening up the war profiteers, the meatgrinder wars we’re running might actually help the economy.

But this is no WWII, and George Bush is no FDR.

So all we’ll end up with as this cycle runs its course are more poor, more homeless, greater economic stratification, thousands of dead, and tens of thousands of wounded Americans coming home to a country too fucked up to help them get back on their feet.

Sure, those stimulatin’ checks may give the economy a temporary bump (proving, in passing, that tax cuts should go to the bottom and not the top if what you’re really after is economic stimulus). That is, if you even get your stimulus check: states are confiscating them left and right to cover unpaid tax liabilities and child support, delinquent student loans and other outstanding debts.

But like everything else BushCo does, this is about campaigning, not governing – a short term bribe in an election year designed to get you to like the GOP just enough not to throw the bastards out come November.

As the man says, we won’t get fooled again.