WTF moment with Wall Street Journal

What happened to the Wall Street Journal? I just read an article from Brett Arends called "Load Up the Pantry" at http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/104914/Load-Up-the-Pantry. It is one of the most inane things I have ever read!
The author recommended that one should stock up their pantry in case of rising food prices. I feel like the article is a tack on to the rice panic of 2008 that most of the media outlets reported. Here is why I think the article is ridiculous:

1. Hello people, commodities are quite violatile! Plus if prices are that high, more farmers/ag producers might increase production and eventually cause a price drop. The commodity prices could very well go down!

2. Let's not forget the Fed either. Thanks to our Monetary Patron Saints, Former Fed Chair's Volker and Greenspan, United States policy had been price stability and stable economic growth. Bernake is on the same page.

3. I don't believe something unless they quote the source. They quoted statistics but didn't say the source whether it was the CPI or PPI price series.

Shame on the Wall Street Journal for such a bad article. If consumers are that concerned about price increases, create a Victory Garden or buy a share of a milking cow.

Day 2 Rice Panic and reality TV

I must send a thank you note to Bravo TV for providing me the best in escapist reality shows. I wuv you I really really do! Where else can I see extremely rich good looking people bitch and complain about everything! Not in DC. The rich are very ugly here. Don't get me started about waiting in line at the prepared foods counter at Whole Foods. This old well dressed witch shoved me aside to get her vittles. Manners people, manners!

Here is my take on the "Real Housewives of New York City"

Ramona:
In one episode, you see Ramona talk to her daughter about having an freedom fund or an impolite way to say it is an "FU Fund". I think it is valid advice to have a fund where you can walk if a job or situation isn't work out. A really mean French person named Michelle gave me some advice, "Information is Power." I disagree. Money is.

Alex:
In the reunion episode she quoted Ayn Rand regarding contradictions? OMG! I am deeply disturbed that a social climber like that quoted Ayn Rand.

Luann:
She seems like a nice lady but is really obsessed with her Countess title. Are people impressed with this in America? I mean I guess she is married to French royalty. I really thought most of the french royalty thing ended with the French Revolution!

Bethanny
I really like her. She seems like such a smartass. I want to see more of this on TV. I was devastated when Gilmore GIrls ended.

Jill
I think you are awesome and a great counterpoint to Ramona. It is like watching Good versus Evil. Darth vader versus luke skywalker in a suede outfit.

This stuff really takes my mind off the current rice panic, Day 2. If you really want to stress, look at the inflation adjusted cost per gallon of gasoline.

Rice panic of 2008

Dear Consumers,

I have been reading about your irrational response to the rice futures market. Currently Costco and Sam's Club is preventing you from buying multiple bags of 40lbs basmati and jasmine rice. Are you crazy consumers going to export your rice or something!? Do you think rice is going to be like $40 per pound or something? You are causing me, who doesn't even like rice, to think about buying a 40lb bag JUST IN CASE! Don't Panic! What is it about grain prices that cause people to go all a twitter!

Socialization

One of my favorite shows is the Dog Whisperer. Caeser Milan knows dogs. I mean this man works with pit bulls and has all his fingers. I wish there was a Neighbor Whisperer. I said Good morning to someone at the shuttle stop. They looked shocked. Geez people, get a hold of yourself. It is just a "Howdy" not an armed robbery. I know this isn't a shock but I have no friends in this neighborhood. Everyone either has a dog or twins. Yes thanks to aging females and fertility treatments my neighborhood is full of them. Sometimes they run in packs with their dogs.

Arithmetic for PhDs

It is scary to think about, but sometimes at work I have to answer e-mails from the public. I like to think of myself as Santa Claus, the Economist. If you are nice, I will go out of my way to help you. If you are naughty, well, god help you. Just kidding, let's just say I don't help you as much.

I had to respond to a customer who sent a very curt e-mail. I told him we don't have the data but try this place and sent him some links. He wrote back immediately and said he couldn't find it still. No thanks or anything, just really a curt response back. I politely told him to try the link again and add the numbers together. Yes, a someone who has a doctorate in science couldn't figure out how to add together a couple rows of data on a web page I sent. Oh shame shame lazy academic!

On being a packrat

I am currently cleaning my office again! The spouse assisted. I looked at a box full of miscellanous doodads and said, "It looks a serial killer collects this stuff!." Mr. Spouse quietly agreed.

That is all.

DC Papal vist

I saw the Pope in DC following his White House visit.

I have never seen such crowds and such characters. It never fails to amaze me that Americans will protest anything and anybody. I just wanted to see the Pope and I did. It is one of the things I wanted to do on my "100 things to do before I die" list. I didn't think it was going to be crossed off. I never want to visit Italy because the Italians are super inefficient about their trains and economy, eat too much pasta, and have hellacious traffic. And I don't drink wine.

Highly concentrated Catholics

Well we can all breathe a sigh of relief. The cherry blossom crowd dispated. Tomorrow I will face the Papal visit crowds. Every week there is some sort of event in DC. Lots of reasons to be late for work! Thanks tourists! You give me a valid excuse to be reasonably late!

I have never experienced such a large number of Roman Catholics in the DC area. I have to say my least favorite crowd event was the the IMF-World Bank protestors about 10 years ago. Those people were awful. They looked like hippies and they threw things. I had the misfortune to be near them due to circumstance, a Foreign Service exam, in a building smack in the middle of the protest zone. I found out after trudging around the action from the Security Guard that the State Department canceled my interview for that day. Geez, don't they have phones at the State Department? I broke into tears! I obviously did not get in the Foreign Service or any bonus points for showing up in medias res of a protest.

At this point in life I am really glad I don't work for them. I really wouldn't want to work in some Third World hell-hole. No, I get to work in DC. I like to refer to DC at the fourth circle of Hell.