The politicians campaigning for office talk about Washington turning on the printing presses and running a deficit, as if it were as simple as that to spend money you don't have.

In fact, money doesn't come from the federal government. Dollar bills are not an obligation of the federal government but of the federal reserve system - and the government doesn't own the federal reserve system. It's a series of banks owned by other banks.

The Secret Life Of Money

In order to spend money, we have to borrow money. We print t-bills, and t-notes, t- standing for "treasury", and we print savings bonds, all of which are interest-bearing instruments. The federal reserve, on the other hand, prints money, and they don't pay any interest at all.

During the last decade, when interest rates were low, there were economists who, like me, argued that we ought to be issuing long term bonds in order to lock in those low interest rates. Instead, we kept on issuing short-term t-bills and t-notes.

In this, the month of marriage, I find Hugh MacLeod's latest artwork to be appropriate. (Feel free to steal it. His artwork is covered by Creative Commons. Use it without change, with attribution to Mr. MacLeod.) And you might enjoy his art blog at http://gapingvoid.com

As far as same sex marriage goes, I find loneliness to be one of the greatest tragedies of our era. We come into this world single file. We exit the same way. If, through some accident, people can meet who fill each others' needs, they should be encouraged, not discouraged, whether they are the same sex, the opposite sex, or they are disinterested in sex.

An awful lot of useful chemistry is emulsions. You get an emulsion when you mix two liquids that don't mix.

Oil - such as butterfat - and water - such as the nonfat part of milk - don't mix. Let milk stand, and the cream will rise to the top. At the dairy, they homogenize milk, which is to say, they turn the globules of milk into itty bitty globules, and if they are divided finely enough, it takes less time for the milk to spoil than for the globules to work their way back together.

Jergen's lotion is another emulsion. So is mayonaisse.

The Miracle Of Modern Chemistry

In the 1950s, a chemist working for NCR corporation decided that it was a pain to have to change the ink ribbon in a cash register. He got the idea that if you had two chemicals that turned dark when they mixed, you could get them to mix when they were struck by a piece of type. How do you separate them? You use one chemical that's oil-based and one that's water based, and form an emulsion. When the emulsion is milled fine enough, you add a third chemical to the liquid that forms a barrier at the interface between the oil and the water. The chemicals can then be painted onto paper - well, it's actually silkscreened, so that the thickness is carefully controlled - and you end up with a paper that turns dark if it's pressed hard.

Thus as it always has been, will it ever be.