Hammer Mill Days

Bit rushed at the moment. Be with you in just a tick. One, mississippi. Two, mississippi. Okay... two ticks. Yeah, I know - we're all busy, right? Well, until you've walked a mile in my shoes. (Or a few yards, even.) Big Green may seem like a bunch of slackers, but let me tell you... we're.... anything... snxxxxx..... Oh, sorry. Drifted off there. Walking a mile in my shoes can get to be a tiring business. Here's what we're up against on a typical day: 6:00 a.m. - Snoring loudly. Man-sized tuber sends his daily complaint email to the codes department; still no response after five years, but... he's a plant, okay? Takes a little learning to get an idea into his fibrous head. But I digress. 8:15 a.m. - Band meeting. Only Marvin (my personal robot assistant) shows up. Which is fitting, because he schedules the meetings unbeknown to the rest of us. As we sleep in our various sections of the mill, Marvin sits at an empty wooden table in the old forge room, making...

This is truly the age of the pirate. I don't mean those Somali teenagers in speedboats - I mean the kind you find trawling the rich waters of Wall Street, J-Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue. And if there were any justice in this world, they wouldn't have a peg leg to stand on. So short of any proper court proceeding, lets look at who wins the Jolly Roger award this week. Hedge Fund Managers. Well, here's a class of individuals that's been cut a rather serious break over the past year or so. Our massive bailout of the financial industry, A.I.G., etc., has been a godsend to hedge fund managers - albeit not the sort that might put the fear of any god into them. The "trickle-down" theory of economics is so ingrained in our system that we keep using it even when it utterly implodes. Thus the hedge funds and other manipulative sectors of our economy are given unlimited underwriting courtesy of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve in hopes that this will grease t...