Adios, LI readers.

This has been immense fun. However, as a habit, blogging has become too expensive for Mr. LI. We received a notice, today, about our electricity. Make the throat slashing gesture -- we have no money to pay it. We have no money to pay rent, etc., etc. And really, it simply takes too muich time, right now, to do this blog.

On the bright side, as one of the "self-employed" of the Bush economy, I have just gotten off the phone with the aid agencies suggested by the City of Austin, and have really understood for the first time what the Bush era means. The City suggested the United way, which suggested St. Mary's, Christian Services, Baptist Community Center. This, of course, surprised us. Asking if there were any more, uh, robust agencies to act as my advocate, if not to offer temporary relief, I was told, No.

This makes complete sense, of course. It is not that the poor in this country are being ruled with indifference -- rather, they evoke unmitigated hostility among the Republican gentry. Losers, whiners, and a reserve army of failure, we are the turds. Having representatives who might look through the bylaws of, say, a power company to discover regulations that protect the poorest payers is just the kind of thing we don't want to encourage. Dependence, you know.

A pity.

So, time for LI to plunge into the bowels of the Temporary Relief for Needy Families. And as any counsellor for the poor knows, the first thing to do is to wean the poor from their bad habits. The poor are always shooting themselves in the foot with their addictions. So it has proven with LI. This habit really has to stop.

So, time to yank the thing. We will leave up the archives and the site for about two weeks, but then, it is coming down. It is too tempting to continue it, and we simply can't afford to. Interesting as it has been to give a worm's eye view of the world, this worm needs a new hole to crawl through, at the very least.

Now for that struggle for food stamps. Wish us well.