Dear iChef,

I keep trying the same thing over and over again and nothing ever changes. What can I do?

In the immortal words of Ritchie Cunningham, “Huh, huh, huh.”

Let’s try something new for 2009!

The word on the streets these days is,

…good riddance to 2008! 2009 is the year everything will turn around for me and CHANGE…

Well I have something to say about that! (of course you do…)

Unless you actually do something differently, the chances that something will actually change are very slim—unless you change certain behaviors in your life, the results will most likely be the same!

You know the old adage about insanity? It’s freaking insane to keep repeating the same steps of an experiment and expecting a different result! Change something!

I’m thinking these thoughts all the time. I even say them from time to time. But I haven’t put it down on paper. I’m not sure I could do a better job so I’ll not spend any time reinventing the wheel—and with that I will add that to the bottom of the list. Let me also state here that the list shouldn’t be taken in any particular order of importance. Start anywhere, somewhere, just start!

Do you have any advice, pearls of wisdom, ideas to help the rest of us? If so, let me know and I will add it to the list

Don’t be afraid to listen to others or discount what they have to say—even if they’re somehow involved or associated with a church. (That will be the second bit of advice I will add to the bottom of the list.)

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Hat tip to iChef Roberts on finding this gem (wheel.)

This is from Tom Ehrich. Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest. His Web site is www.morningwalkmedia.com.

Tom Ehrich: Break bad ‘08 habits

* Don’t believe in “something for nothing.” We cannot continue to suspend skepticism and careful evaluation just because we want things to be a certain way. A shell game is always a shell game.

* Don’t trust the banker who hawked you a home equity loan. In their headlong pursuit of bonuses, many financial workers broke faith with their customers, sold us inappropriate products, gambled recklessly with our money, and now want us to bear the burden.

* Don’t shop on credit. This is the year to tear up credit cards, stop drawing down home
equity loans, and stop using debt to finance our lifestyles. Even if it has short-term impact
on retailers, we need to get our personal finances in order. A healthy consumer economy needs to be spending real money, not plastic.

* Don’t let your job define you. We grow up believing that career defines our worth and identity. Then, when we make necessary career changes, and especially when we have changes thrust upon us, we don’t just sputter financially. We descend into a pit of self-doubt and self-destructive behavior.

* Be generous even when you feel strapped. True community depends on people looking out for each other, especially when danger or distress loom. Any society can spend prosperity; a truly special society shares its food with the hungry.

* Learn to can vegetables and to make repairs. It isn’t about saving money, but about self-reliance and making do. As we stagger into the second year of a worsening recession, it is important that we each feel capable and not rendered powerless by a complex world.

* Learn from failure. The greatest shortcoming among recent leaders hasn’t been their
mistakes, bad guesses and faulty information, but their refusal to admit failure, to accept accountability for failure and to learn from failure. We the people, in turn, need to stop pouncing on failure.

* Rethink how you raise your children. We seem to be engaged in an epic experiment in non-
parenting, with too many children raised by minimum-wage employees, television and over-involved parents living through their children. The results are sobering: children who cannot think for themselves, who have a high sense of entitlement, who plagiarize without compunction, and who are intellectually and motivationally unprepared to learn. Who, then, will make the hard decisions and do the hard work that freedom and economic vitality require?

* Help your faith community grow by accepting changes. Now more than ever, our society needs faith communities that are able to heal at the margins, speak forcefully at the center, and help a distracted and floundering people find solid ground. Conflict and resistance to change paralyze too many congregations.

* Spend more time at home with loved ones. Even if we could still afford the parallel lives that many families lead (and we can’t), this is the year to spend more time together. Living overly busy, career-centered and separate lives hasn’t worked.

* Stop living vicariously through a celebrity culture. We need to look into our mirrors and stop seeing what we wish we were, and instead find peace in who we are.

• Stop spending time reinventing the wheel—it’s already been invented—sheesh!
• Don’t be afraid to listen to others or discount what they have to say—even if they’re somehow involved or associated with a church. We don’t know everything, if we did, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

Good luck with all of that!

—iChef PSA

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Others with something to say:

Michelle Malkin: Predictions for the New Year and See-Dubya’s New Year’s Resolutions

The Anchoress: A 2008 Round Up

Technorati Tags: Advice, insanity, Op/Ed, Sage, Tom Ehrich

Wafer-thin-mint?

“no, no, I couldn’t…?”

Apparently, even on the dawn of the end of the world: mortgage foreclosures—people being thrown out of the houses they couldn’t afford in the first place, people losing their jobs—unemployment going up up up, high energy prices, money unavailable to borrow—interest rates on those credit card balances going up up up, BANKS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS, retirement savings slashed in half!

No, we’re not done yet! People, with shovel in hand, keep digging. We’re not at the bottom. Poor Schlubs!

What is wrong with you people—Put the shovel down!

I guess it’s clear—why should we stop spending (and realize we are in real trouble) when the government can’t seem too? (People think and feel the same way about the people screaming about global warming from their mansions ivory towers and private jet airplanes…)

Other Voices:

Black Friday kills by Michelle Malkin

SOUGHT: WAL-MART SHOPPERS WHO TRAMPLED WORKER by Drudge

Has America learned a lesson about consumption? Ed Morrissey

Stephen Roach believes that the painful economic contraction we’re about to experience will remind Americans of some basic truths about consumption. In today’s New York Times, Roach says that the period between the last recession and now has been marked by the unique phenomenon of assets-based consumption. We need a return to income-based consumption, and the transition is going to sting.

Technorati Tags: financial crisis, holiday shopping, News, PSA, Put the shovel down!, shopping madness, unemployment, Wafer-thin-mint?

Other, other Voices:

(Video) Wal-Mart Worker Trampled to Death by Stop the ACLU

Black Friday turns dark by kel-c SwekRed

Black Friday and Love - UPDATED
by theAnchoress

Unrestrained consumerism claims two by This ain’t Hell, but you can see it from here

I don’t know who started this Black Friday crap, but it’s got to be the biggest gimmick ever started and perpetuated by the idiot local news stations. Every year, expecting my local news anchors to tell me what has happened in my area, my senses are assaulted by the images and interviews with obese, jobless morons who would normally be stretched out on their well-worn couch with crumbs of what used to be a potato hanging from their scraggly beards, but instead decided to be the subject of a “news” report about other obese, jobless morons who camped out all night to get a few pennies off of things they probably can’t afford at any price.

No Black Friday Shopping For Me by nicedeb

Technorati Tags: financial crisis, holiday shopping, News, PSA, Put the shovel down!, shopping madness, unemployment, Wafer-thin-mint?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families close by and far away, from IrascibleChef!

WARNING: Perspective Ahead! Don’t be discouraged there’s hope!

I had a conversation with an old friend the other day about the end of the world and how we’re basically, in the perfect storm, that IS the beginning of the end. But, is it really???

Well, that’s a happy thought!

Just like each of us is, in cold hard facts—dying, so is the world (unlike human life the world might have a billion years or so.) Only when we dwell on the end does it become overwhelming and unbearable.

Financial disaster that doesn’t seem solvable, without even considering or dealing with the pending Social Security or health care system disasters, which doesn’t even deal with global warming and food and resource shortages, which doesn’t deal with terrorism or world domination, and on and on.

Whee! That was a slippery slope!

Where does it stop—it doesn’t, NO OTHER TIME IN HISTORY WAS IT AS BAD AS IT IS NOW…

Right…

The caveman really had it goin’ on, no worries there!

Or maybe, it was better during the American Civil War, when the country broke into two, it’s own citizens took up arms against each other, 500,000 died, all this less than a 100 years after those same citizens took up arms to separate themselves from jolly old England, where countless people died.
Whee! That was even more fun!

World War 1—the entire modern world was on FIRE!
World War 2—the entire modern world was on FIRE! And there was extermination of entire ethnicities going on—HOLOCAUST!
Whee!

I’ll spare you the many tragic times of life throughout history—you get the point, don’t you?

It’s always the end of the world! It always seems like we’re on the cusp!

Not convinced yet? How about a little more perspective:
Presidents and Civil leaders being assassinated, oil shortages-lines of cars-odd and even days, Civil wars, world wars, millions of people killed, pollution we can’t breathe, etc Blah, blah, blah.

Remember, the television show, All in the Family, by Norman Lear?
Well, it took place during the early 70’s, the Era of the Vietnam War, Presidential scandal ending in resignation, oil embargo shortages, civil unrest, the cold war and nuclear proliferation, high unemployment, high mortgage rates. And it was about a hardworking blue collar bigot (Archie Bunker) and his sweet but obtuse submissive wife (Edith) and their grownup daughter (Gloria) and husband (Mike) that live together because the grownup children can’t afford to live on their own. Meathead, as Archie likes to call Mike, the son-in-law, is out of work because he’s going back to school to get a degree. Mike and Gloria are ultra-liberal and Archie is the complete opposite.

I watched this show as a little boy and I’m always reminded of this one particular shows storyline when people think that it’s the end of the world and it couldn’t possibly be worse.

Mike says he won’t have and bring up a child in this horrible world that we live in (all the things I explained above)—because it’s a world without hope and possibility. And I remember as this small child thinking, what if the child he doesn’t want to bring into the world is the child that has the answers to fix the world…

After all was said, worried about, and done—it wasn’t the end of the world. For me that show/lesson always puts things into perspective and maybe it might always seem like the end of the world when you’re sitting in the middle of it.

I say maybe it’s good that we’re in a down turn, maybe it’s good we don’t get everything we want—we can’t, we’re unable to get what we want. Maybe it’s good we have to sacrifice, not as an option, but as we have no other choice! That’s really what sacrifice is about isn’t it, shouldn’t it have to hurt in order for it to be a real sacrifice? Or is a sacrifice something that we can do without and we do?

Maybe it would be easier to conserve and be better citizens of the earth if we knew more about sacrifice and what it’s really about. Maybe we could live within our means, maybe we could pollute less, maybe use less of our natural resources, maybe we would waste less because everything would have more meaning, maybe…

I think about Christmas—who cares? I used to live for presents. Now it makes me nauseous. We can pretty much buy what we want for ourselves, so why do we go through this exercise in gluttony? Yes, we do it for the kids… Were we teach them that they can have anything they ask for. When I was a kid I didn’t get everything I asked for and was disappointed many times. But you know what, it helps me deal with disappointment when it comes in daily life—a skill many people struggle with these days. That’s pathetic!

Maybe we should be thankful for what we have. Maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad for not having everything—maybe there is value in wanting…

I’m looking forward to some real sacrifice, I’m looking forward to family life that centers around what’s really important—family! I’m looking forward to all of us caring enough not to be wasteful. I’m looking forward for us to come up with solutions to our global problems not bandages. I’m looking forward for dealing with what we Have no other choice except to deal with. I’m looking forward to us understanding the value for what we earn and realizing we can’t or shouldn’t always get what we want, and the I’m looking forward being thankful for what I’m lucky or blessed enough to have—with hope for things I can’t yet reach.

Don’t misinterpret what I wish for, I’m not looking forward to the pain and struggle we will have to endure before it gets better. I know I will survive either which way, I’m like a cockroach, I’m not going anywhere!
But for US for to survive as a society, as country, as the human race, as a world—We need to change, SACRIFICE, and learn from our past…

We can do it! Sometimes we need to step backwards to move forward, sometimes we need to sacrifice in order to grow…

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

—iChef PSA

Special thanks to my family, friends, and God…

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Other voices of clarity out there: (Thank you for being there!)

By Michelle Malkin Giving thanks for self-reliant Americans

by The Anchoress “Gratitude-giving” 2008

by MyCowardice The fallacy and impossibility of self-reliance…

by SkewRed Happy Thanksgiving!

by HotAir: Happy Thanksgiving! by Ed Morrissey

By Mark Epstein Why I’m Thankful this Holiday

By Michelle Malkin Giving thanks for self-reliant Americans

by David’sCommonSense Happy Thanksgiving

By Blackfive A Time for Giving Thanks

By Jules Crittenden Things To Be Thankful For In A Troubled World

By AllahPundit Hopenchange: Who’s up for a little hope and change? A new transmission from Mt. Olympus, replete with another Lincoln reference, of course. {The idea here is tell us how bad (in case we didn’t know it was bad) it is and then promise that the new administration (government) is the solution—so we know who to thank…}
Our Leader:

Technorati Tags: All in the Family, end of the world, perfect storm, Sacrifice, thanksgiving, world wars

Somebody asked, “What do you think about oil prices and the fact that they’ve dropped so significantly? Do you really think it’s all about speculation, that demand will be so low because of the economic crisis that is affecting the entire world?”

Somebody responded, “I don’t think people are smart enough to know.” Which opened up a different variety of worms which we will discuss at later date.

Here’s what I think based on my many years on this planet:

First of all oil skyrocketed out of control very fast. Any reason to speculation that oil would not meet demand was a reason for it to go up.

Let’s go down a list:

• Going to war in Iraq—oil up (nothing changed—oil still flowed, just speculation that there might be a problem)
• Hurricanes that could affect the Gulf oil platforms.
• Boutique gasoline mixtures—caused gas prices to increase.
• Taxes—to provide money for this and that.
• Refinery fires—remember them?
• Don’t forget the new emerging markets—India and China and supply and demand…
• How about rumor that the world supply of oil is running low?
• How about the maniac Mr. Imma-Dinna-Jacket from Iran making the world think he’s going to disrupt the oil supply line?
• Don’t let me forget the analysts, whose words like, I can see oil at (unheard of inconceivable price of) $100 a barrel—and then we marched right up to $100 plus!
• Oil speculators, like the late 90’s day traders—out of control!
• Oh, I almost forgot the value of the US dollar. Oil prices are based on the dollar, because of weakness in the dollar (due to printing up more money for all this debt and selling our debt to other countries, the value of the dollar significantly fell like a rock)—the dollar bought less or things like oil cost more—this was also a cause for the swift increase of the price of oil.

Up, up an away in my beautiful balloon!

By the way the cost of getting oil never changed about $2-$3 a barrel!

Speculators making millions, corporations making unheard of billions, and guess what, the government making trillions in taxes on the same corporations profits and taxes on consumers at the gas pumps and taxes on the speculators trading. By the way where does that tax money go that the government quietly can’t pile high enough or fast enough???

So, we had another little bubble… Getting bigger and bigger. Corporations and speculators and GOVERNMENT getting richer and richer, while the bomb ticks away! People start warning sirens. Tic tick tic.

You remember the stock market bubble: peoples personal wealth increasing, corporations that didn’t even have earnings or a product worth billions on paper, and the government (where do you think all the tax money goes—SURPLUS???) getting richer and richer, while the bomb ticked away. People sounded the alarms—”irrational exuberance!” Stock market can’t keep going up, there’s no fundamentals…” Poof! All gone

So people finally started crying here at home about the high price of gas at the pump and leaders like Obama, Reid, H. Clinton, Pelosi talked about windfall profit tax (because they thought they could get away with it and then talked about government taking over the oil industry…)

Bush mentions drilling for the oil that we have right here in our own backyard… The mere mention sends speculators reeling in panic. The music stopped and everyone rushing for the last chair. Obama, Reid, H. Clinton, Pelosi, telling people that drilling will only bring the prices down by pennies 10 years from now—hahahaha! The public not buying it! Drill baby drill is the chant!

Speculators can’t get rid of their oil futures fast enough! Oil is plummeting! Faster on the way down than it was on the way up! No drilling won’t matter—just mention it and it dropped over $50 per barrel…

Now, oil’s more than $100 a barrel cheaper! Was that a bubble I heard pop???

The biggest loser will be the government—all the tax revenue—poof! Gone!

And now, we’re in the middle of this mess with the financial crisis, not seen since the Great Depression. The sub prime mortgage debacle is ground zero and a real estate bubble popped. The first stage cause—people who can’t afford homes and banks being forced by government to give them loans. Second stage, the banks knew people couldn’t pay back the loans and didn’t want to get stuck holding the short end, packaged up the bad loans under some prime beef and sold it off to the suckers! The world wanted a piece of the action and got it! People sounded the sirens! Nobody listened. Poof! Trillions evaporated! Jobs gone! Companies gone! Wha happen???

So you have this halt to the world economy and everybody (all the nations including this one) responsible. You know how I know everyone is responsible? Because even those with their hands clamped in the cookie jar aren’t aren’t to blame… Nobody is being dragged through the streets to be executed over this HUGE MESS. People involved are even getting new jobs and positions—how is that possible? How is it possible that there isn’t anyone in trouble or losing their job over this? Where is the accountability?

The Government convinces everyone that almost a trillion dollars are needed after injecting billions into a failing system for over a year. They say the money is for buying bad loans from the banks. And now the government is starting to bail out private industry by taking them over. And the appropriated money that was NEEDED is now being considered to bail out the auto industry—WHAT? You said it was for this and now it’s going to be for that? The government is definitely going to need more money! Think about this, Social Security doesn’t have the money in it that it has collected because the money was used for something else… Tick Tic Tick.

List of bursting factors:

• Bush mentions drilling
• Speculators go running!
• Economy slamming down because of the sub prime mortgage disaster.
• World economy affected and speculation that the world is in for some very bad times.

Oil at $50.96 on November 12, 2008

Oh, we haven’t even touched Social Security or Health care yet—Tic Tick Tic—BOOM!

—iChef PSA

PS

We are truly fucked! I wish the global warming would hurry up already and end this disaster we let happen!

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Other Voices:

Oil spirals below $55 per barrel by Ed Morrissey

Bailout-mania: If you didn’t see this coming… By Michelle Malkin

More reader mail on bailout-mania By Michelle Malkin

We Can Solve the Financial Crisis by Destroying OPEC

There’s a way to force the oil cartel to compete with other energy sources.
- by Robert Zubrin Dr. Robert Zubrin, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is an astronautical engineer and author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil.

Detroit Climbs Aboard the Bailout Gravy Train by William Teach

Detroit is a Petri dish, in which mad scientists have allowed the loathsome bacterium that is liberalism to flourish without restraint. As a result of this misguided experiment, the former capital of industry has been reduced to a Third-World hellhole. The most liberal city in America has bankrupted itself, and now has its hand out.

Estimated cost of feds’ financial crisis countermeasures thus far: $5 trillion By: Pam on RightVoices

Video: Subprime Banking Mess..How the markets really work By: Pam on RightVoice

Paulson: Um, change of plans on the bailout money by Allahpundit

The money bit (pun intended) comes at 1:15. It seems the Troubled Asset Relief Program will no longer involve, er, troubled assets, but rather injecting capital — which, per Slublog, sounds like a good idea to one of the very few bloggers able to comment on this mind-boggling subject beyond the level of ideological boilerplate. (Me not included.)

What’s A Moderate Depression? by MaxedOutMama

The Fed’s Ponzi Scheme: “It’s none of your business where the money is going.” by: Mark Epstein

Every recession has silver lining by Public Secrets

Technorati Tags: Bush, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, global economy, Global Warming, Government, Oil Prices, US dollar value, war, world economy

Hmmm. Interesting.

Protecting this country by computer monitoring (tagged words filling up a database by computer) incoming phone calls by suspected people who want to harm us (from outside this country) is condemned up and down by privacy advocates, politicians on the other side, and the community jesters—riling the sheeple.

Then those same advocates, above mentioned, will look into an individual private citizen’s background and even garbage because he asked a question that puts their candidate in a bad light with the intent to discredit and malign him—ASTOUNDING! I’m not sure if the HYPOCRISY meter needle goes any higher than that!

Ed Morrissey: How did people get dirt on Joe the Plumber?

How did so much information about Joe Wurzelbacher’s taxes and licensing get out to the public so quickly? Officials in Ohio want to know the answer. They apparently suspect that state and local government systems got exploited in order to attack Joe the Plumber.

Hypocrites! But this hypocrite is of the most dangerous kind, because the original cause of being wary of government surveillance is VERY important! WE as a people should be very wary of the government surveying US.

These most dangerous hypocrites are surveying individual people because they spoke out, they broke the law to look into private records—looking for something to discredit an individual because he asked the wrong question… (remember freedom of speech?) (remember freedom of privacy?) (you remember when we were allowed to ask our government questions and not be thrown in jail—you better because that’s where we’re headed!

Will you have the courage to ask a question from your government leaders—knowing you could be dragged by chains from a pickup truck on a gravely dirt road? Hmm. Think about it!

My question is, why aren’t the politicians involved, speaking out on this grave breach of an individual’s privacy—simple, because they benefit! (why are the Privacy Advocates sitting on their hands, not screaming about it—because they were the one’s breaching it) (why isn’t the public sheeple condemning it—because the jesters aren’t telling them too…)

Here is what they do:

YOU’RE PUNISHED: OBAMA CAMPAIGN CUTS OFF TV STATION AFTER TOUGH BIDEN INTERVIEW…

Blast from the past:

Choo Choo Charlie Rangel

Think!

—iChef PSA

Technorati Tags: Biden, censorship, Charlie Rangel, Election 2008, freedom of speech, Government, hypocrisy, Hypocrite, joe the plumber, Media bias, News, Obama, Opinion, Politics, privacy, Sheeple