So that's why they are demanding US dollars.

Sure. Horrid crustacean gods are very big on the international currency market wheelings and dealings.

(sarameg, nothing you say is tempting me any less.)

Sure. Horrid crustacean gods are very big on the international currency market wheelings and dealings.

I dunno - with the decline of the dollar due to huge US budget and trade deficits that appear to have no end in site, it'd be in the lobster people's best interest to invest in Euro or Yen.

Of course, if they already own dollars, pulling some money out of dollars could cause a big decline in the value of their remaining dollars. Japan is stuck in this bind too.

After watching the amount of watering a lawn requires in the tropics, I can't imagine why they're such the default, even in places like LA. Other that, when well watered, they're soft enough to just lie down on without equipment.

So it's the frisbee throwing sort of ground cover I'm curious about.

Decks are alien to me. Really cool, but seem weird.

Sara, that sounds lovely.

Our house in Jamaica has a half-sunken patio (the lawn slopes up from the front of the yard, but the house is all one one level - there's a concrete walkway around the entire house, which widens into a patio about as big as my apartment in back. Doors open from the annex (a conjoined apartment mostly used by my father as office space) and double doors from the dining room onto it. They've torn up the storage ... thing (easily twice my apartment) and the badminton court now, and replaced those with grass now.) Someone not my father does the yard work.

My parents have gone the no grass route with their yard. There was a small plot of lawn when they moved in, which they let become a meadow and eventually planted herbs at the end of. Chamomile and creeping thyme make good groundcover that you can walk on, not sure about lying down. They've got a deck in the back. They're big on landscaping with native plants, but also grow things to eat which are not native and require more water, but they do drip irrigation to lower their water needs.

I also have friends who basically paved over their backyard entirely (around the deck and shed, anyway) and garden in containers. Weeding is minimal, that's for sure.

I have insidiously planted mint in our backyward so it will spread over the yard after we move out. The landlord will just mow it, like he does the rest of teh weeds that make up the lawn, but at least it will smell nice when he does.

Someone at work sent me this very cool wallpaper site. If your desktop is bare, this is the place to go: [link]

- t! I want this one just across the river in Algiers Point. [link]

Aww. Our baby panda's all grown up. Still dead, though, from the looks of it.

t /nostalgia

That's a cute place, Heather. Just a little bit out of my price range, but you buy it and I'll visit!

Matzah: [link]

Excellet Eric Alterman editorial in The Nation about the Bush administration's relationship to the press.

Bush's War on the Press

Make no mistake: The Bush Administration and its ideological allies are employing every means available to undermine journalists' ability to exercise their First Amendment function to hold power accountable. In fact, the Administration recognizes no such constitutional role for the press. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has insisted that the media "don't represent the public any more than other people do.... I don't believe you have a check-and-balance function."

Lot's o' facts....