Second day of school for the local district. Yesterday would have been my busiest day of the year. Last year. Didn't rent a single instrument yesterday. Only fielded a couple of phone queries. Today (last year) the phone was ringing off the hook from the moment I stepped in the door until I left. It's eerily silent this morning. Looks like the budget cuts hit the music programs pretty hard. I should still come out OK if even half the districts maintained a music program. I don't have the instrument supply to have handled the full (last year's) load anyway. We'll just have to see what happens.

OK, tell me if I got this wrong, because I heard it whilst I was waking up and I was still pretty groggy. But I guess that Israel has made some kind of serious proposal to build a pipeline (across Turkey? and...??) to deliver directly to them some high percentage of that Iraqi oil we stole. Folks, this would be the stupidest thing ever done in world history. Look at it from an Arab point of view. Carving out a Zionist line all the way around greater Arabia. This might just upset a few folks.