The House and Senate have reportedly resolved their differences over the stimulus bill, which brings us to the interesting question: Which do you prefer, deflation or hyper-inflation?

Yesterday the stock market expressed its displeasure with the whole thing, sending the averages down about 4%.

My friend Ron Overmyer, the editorial cartoonist of the long running Hollywood Dog cartoon strip, has summed up our current economic situation pretty well in his latest one-frame 'color' commentary. I characterize his cartoon as pick your poison because we got ourselves into this mess by papering over problems of the past, not solving them, and here we are doing it again.

I remember the "Snoopy for President" campaigns, complete with buttons, posters and bumper stickers. What I do not remember is anything about his political platform. What did he stand for? What problems did he see and how did he propose to solve them?

Here on the "Left Coast," we Californians now have our second actor governor. Remember Ronnie? He was pretty popular too. Our track record with actors is every bit as good as our history with lawyer-politicians, maybe even better. Considering all the pretending that our political leaders do, aren't they just actors anyway? Maybe with more "credentials".

And speaking of seconds, we are in the middle of our second term in a second Bush Administration (Bush senior dropped the ball and did not get a second term), full of second-best ideas. And before y'all get bent out of shape on my picking on the president, I never vote the party line. I'm just another dissatisfied customer at this point. The election results indicate a few more like me.

This cartoon was sent to me by the artist/satirist Ron P. Overmyer (www.hollywooddog.com) and I thought it expressed not just Bush senior's sentiments but also the nation's.