A recent John Stewart Daily Show that explored Mitt Romney’s recent release of income tax data got me to thinking about long division.

Romney’s income of roughly $22 million per year is so large that it kind of disappears into the haze of too much information. But, get out your pencil and divide that by 365 days to discover that his income is $60,000 per day. That is slightly over $10,000 more than the median family income in the US. 2010 = $49,455.

Then, I thought about corporate money in government. In 2011, $3.27 billion dollars was reported officially as expenditures on lobbying in Washington.  Again with the long division, that is $6.1 million per member of Congress. Remember this is lobbying dollars, not the super pac money or all of the campaign contributions Congress people spend most of their time soliciting. Or, to divide the $3.27 billion by the number of officially registered lobbyists in Washington, 12,592, this gives each of them $260,000 to divide between pay and payola. 

Do some of your own long division. 

We are off visiting children and grandchildren in Hong Kong. This includes a beach stop at Gili Trawangan Island off Bali (actually Lomboc Island). How far to come to be reminded of Hudson. Here are bags of Holcim cement being delivered on the beach with steel and other construction materials.

Almost immediately after my previous posting, “Mystery Pizza Truck – still somewhat of a mystery“, my Facebook page lit up with comments from Gary Shiro at Hudson Opera House and Peter Pehrson at Acres Food Coop about the future whereabouts of my mystery. Gary informed that Truck Pizza will be at 347 Warren St during Winter Walk on December 3rd. Peter delivered the news that Truck Pizza would be operating that very evening at the Basilica.

So, off I went last night, arriving fashionably late at 8PM for a party that began at 5:30.

Sam Starr and crew were right there inside the truck in front of the roaring oven. Being late I didn’t get a chance to taste the featured pizzas, but Sam whipped up a couple. I took them home. Karen and I gobbled them up. We give them a big thumbs up. Karen particularly liked the slightly burned edges. The crust was very thin and crisp. Total cooking time about a minute. Just as Sam had told me early in the summer when we first talked about this venture.

Exactly why should I be concerned about this wood-fired pizza truck??? (Earlier report here)

I discovered that it has its own blog: Brick Oven Diaries.

This stolen image shows that more progress is being made virtually.

image stolen from http://brickovendiaries.wordpress.com/

We continue to see comments on current events in the store front at 243 Warren St. Most windows are obvious in their intent. I had to ask about the first. I am guessing about the last in this series.

09/11/2011

The Annual BeLo3rd Food Event

Nick Haddad for Mayor - primary day

Arts Walk October 2011

Halloween 2011

Nick Haddad for Mayor - election day

Waiting - for the election results? or just waiting...

I came on a set of graphics in Mother Jones, “It’s the Inequality, Stupid: Eleven charts that explain what’s wrong with America” that illustrate what you probably already know. But, a simple refresher course in some of the reasons why the rich are rich. The 99% already have this base covered.

Here are some of the charts I liked. Read the whole article at the Mother Jones website.

Income (constant dollars)

Note that if median family income had simply kept up with inflation over this period it would have grown to $92,000 instead of $50,000.

Are Corporations Over Taxed?

Mother Jones does not make it clear that the Payroll Tax is also a tax on individuals. To add insult to injury the Payroll Tax is not levied beyond the first %106,800 of income.

How Are The Richest of the Rich Doing?

This week’s installment of the Republican race for the honor of running for President bought us the eye-rolling scene of Herman Cain rolling his eyes trying to answer the question, “Do you approve of how Obama handled the Libyan matter?”

The media leapt on this as an example of Cain’s lack of knowledge and expertise in foreign policy. What do they think is expertise? If one simply read the daily newspaper or watched the evening news with any regularity over the last year one could readily come up with a range of critiques of Obama’s policy in Libya, none of them expert, though many trenchant and much more interesting than Cain’s fumbling. This as not a lack of expertise in foreign policy. This is an example of a man who clearly is not even involved in the day to day news of world let alone a deep thinker.

In case you missed Cain in action, here is the Milwaukee Journal version on YouTube.

This morning’s jog took me down to the South Bay, then along the Holcim roadway to 3rd St. From there I ran along the back side of LB Furniture to The Basilica. On passing the Basilica, I saw this aluminum step van rigged out with a chimney.

A well placed rumormonger informs (can a rumor be information?) that this is a wood-fired organic pizza truck. The black soot around the chimney suggests that it must have been fired up and tested out. From the outside, everything seems ready to go excepting the absent front bumper.

Where and when with the pizza??

BTW – watch out for the criminally high speed bumps along the LB Furniture building. I am sure that low riders like my Corolla will loose their oil pans on those things.

Once again 243 Warren St. marks our calendar.

Despite an ominous Saturday evening marked by the threat of 12 inches of snow and a declared snow emergency, the 11th Annual Hudson Area Library Ghostly Gallop 5K Race/ Walk got off Sunday morning (10/30/11).

I don’t know who won. I managed 41 minutes (much more than twice the winning time to be sure) and Karen came in at 52 minutes.

The kids had their one mile race too.