I was in Target the other day and remembered that I needed to buy a birthday card for a friend. I've taken to checking the orgin of products because I'm sick of all my money going overseas.

Now of course Target is the last place you'd expect to find anything made in the USA, but look I did.

Incredibly even birthday cards are printed in China these days. I found a printed in USA card eventually - it had a crappy embossed painting of a NASCAR on it and one of those obese NASCAR drivers (don't get me started on NASCAR, I know only Real Americans (TM) like it) pictured on the inside of the card.

Perfect, I thought, for my nerdy British programmer buddy who was turning forty.

Anyway I digress. I wonder how much of that card was made in America - sure it was printed here, but where was the art sourced, where was the paper manufactured? - South Korea? India? China?

Fortunately for me, my industry has a bad track record in outsourcing art to foreign countries, otherwise I'd be screwed. When you're making videogames for the American market, it helps if you live and work in the US so you can understand the mindset.

I've searched desperately on the internet for websites that sell only products made in the US, but all I find are these gung-ho foaming at the mouth right-wing xenophobic idiot sites. Surely there are ethically and politically sound businesses out there that understand the need to buy American and promote American manufacturing, yet aren't run by conservative born-again, gun-nut mental, fundamentalist, Palin-worshipping green-ink letter writing homophobic psychotic racist fuckwits?

As for Obama's plan - it's pretty much a given that the right wing will be against it. As a matter of fact FDR's plan DID put Americans back to work, and put money in people's pockets, but the war put money into the military machine. Justifiably that time, though.

In those days people used to give up stuff. In the UK there was rationing which carried on right up until 1957! In some streets in some cities you can still see little metal nubs in the ground where iron ailing were cut down to be recycled into tanks and planes etc.

People were glad to help the war effort to fight the Nazis.

What was Bush's advice back in 2001 when he announced he was going to not attack the country that bombed the twin towers i.e. Saudi Arabia, but Afghanistan instead? - go buy stuff. keep shopping.

We're about to enter a pre-planned era of pretty much endless war against an invisible extremist enemy that has an inexhaustible supply of uneducated brainwashed religious-fundamentalist sexually repressed suicidal robots (no not born-again Christians - I mean Muslims!) which will bring the economy crashing own around us, but don't for Gad's sake give anything up , America. Keep buying stuff you don't need. Nothing can possibly go wrong with this plan.

Oh and make sure you buy Chinese goods, even though that does nothing for the US economy, even though they didn't join the bogus Coalition of the WIlling - but don't buy French goods because we don't owe the French bllions or trillions of dollars, so it's OK if you make a fool of yourself by pouring all your restaurant's champagne down the gutter, and generally playing sleight of hand tricks on the stupid so they don't realise that buying Chinese is no better or worse than buying French or Welsh or Luxembourgian or Argentinian.

But I say again, do not, under any circumstances let our outrageous baboon-style party in the White House, or our ceaseless slaughter of innocent people, or our shameful condemnation of one dictator but not another, or our interference in the Middle east but not in Myanmar or Congo etc, don't for Chrissakes let that interfere with EBaying or couponing or hanging at the mall or downloading or anything that involves loading up your credit card, refinancing, getting a stupid interest free mortgage, or having the largest stupidest most pointless SUV. Turn a blind eye, and keep on shopping .

Sorry, i got stung by wasps this morning and I came over all bob gote (or whatever his name was).