Harry S Truman. “It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.” [Quotes of the Day]

Part of my day I spent at the Habitat for Humanity office discussing accounting issues. They asked me to help out with accounts payable. They have some existing problems from the 2001 audit they are trying to clean up. I got a little more tax work done. I have all the data so I just need to focus on finishing up and not getting distracted.

It was a great day to spend indoors doing the tax returns since it was so miserable outdoors. I could be finished in a day or two.

Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.

Natalie Maines, lead singer the Dixie Chicks, delivered these harsh words directed at President Bush in a recent concert in London

A lot has been written about the furor around this comment. I respect her right to express her opinion about the war but I do not agree with her method or her inclusion of the people from Texas into her position. I lived in Texas for eighteen years so I am not surprised with the negative reaction by her fellow Texans. Aggravating European anti-American sentiment and the people of Texas was probably not in her plan when she opened her mouth. She made a mistake and most of us have already gotten over it. I am pretty sure the President has forgiven her. I doubt the good people of Texas will forgive her as quickly.

Peter Arnett made a mistake and was fired. He showed a real lack of judgement when he gave an interview to the Iraqis that could easily be seen as encouraging the Iraqis to fight harder. Some people have claimed his firing amounts to censorship but I view his actions as aiding and abetting the enemy propaganda effort. In hindsight his analysis of the war plan probably caused more Iraqis to die than otherwise. Now that's a tough lump to swallow. In other wars his actions would require a much stiffer penalty. He has recently been hired in England. I wish him good luck, more humility, and better judgement.

I am starting a bit early but I think I have all of the program updates for TaxCut for Business. I use H&R Block's tax programs because I have used them for almost ten years. I like Intuit for personal and business accounting but H&R's programs do the job and I am familiar with them. TaxCut for Home and Business is a much cheaper alternative for people creating simple returns for partnership returns(LLC). After I downloaded the latest forms, I rolled over the previous year's data. The returns look good so after I change a few items I should be done by Friday. Since we are blessed with another beautiful day I will alternate tax work with spreading the composted manure in the fields.

It was a beautiful day today. I should be working on tax returns but it was too nice to spend the whole day indoors. I took some time to go outdoors and spread compost in our pastures.The trees have started to bud and there is a lot of young grass. Everything is turning from brown to green. Spring is here.

Today is my 49^th birthday. I try not to celebrate my birthday but today I decided to bake myself an angel food cake and a loaf of bread. I don't mind helping celebrate other people's birthdays, but this is about as far as I am willing to go with my birthday celebration. I haven't made an angel food cake in a couple of years and it showed. It came out like a brick. To top my birthday off in fine style, my bread didn't rise. I make bread about once a week so I was a little surprised and disappointed. I think I will go back to not celebrating my birthday. Now that I think about it I think I will go to bed before anything else happens.

Faith and family: sustenance in combat. A foxhole view: the war through soldiers' eyes. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

A well written article that brings home the reality and fears of war as expressed by the soldiers.

Web Site Optimization review. Smart people have said nice things about “Speed Up Your Site”. I have not read the book, but the markup on the book's companion site is impressively optimized. (356 words) [dive into mark]

The postings were interesting but not too useful. I cannot get thrilled with a recomendation to save three bytes by omitting “www” in links. I have routinely increased jpeg compression in image files on websites I have worked on. This one fix saves ten to twenty thousand bytes and I cannot see the difference between the compressed and non-compressed image. It is my personal preference but I prefer to keep sites simple. I prefer compatibility with standards/browsers and code readibility to minor increases in download speed.

Today I saw the Iraqi weather report on television for the first time and couldn't help but laugh. It was sandwiched between the traffic report and the local weather forecast. I guess inquiring minds want to know!