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Looking at those long queues of thousands of Lake County residents waiting for H1N1 vaccinations, The Hound wondered: Is it time to panic?

The county expects to run out of the vaccine shortly after getting about 10,000 doses. This is the clout Lake County has: Health officials ask for 100,000 doses, we get 10,000.

But what the county did get was dispensed at five different flu shot locations --- Mundelein, Gurnee, Round Lake Beach, Waukegan and North Chicago --- as mothers dragged their kids from school to get the shots. Already, two people have died in the county from H1N1 and they weren't kids.

One was a 72-year-old man, the other a 41-year-old woman. Both were from Gurnee, which apparently is ground zero in the Year of H1N1. Perhaps its swine flu revenge for Gurnee stealing Waukegan's car dealers, eh?

Of course, in following Centers for Disease Control guidelines, these initial flu clinics were only for people in high-risk groups, including pregnant women; those 6 months to 24 years of age; health care and emergency medical services employees; and people 25 to 64 years of age with underlying medical conditions, such as asthma or diabetes.

And, The Hound wants to know, which lobbyists from the pork producing states changed the name from swine flu to H1N1. Swine flu sounded more benign. H1N1 sounds like it should be a monicker for an android in a program on the Sci-Fi Channel.

As for panic time. It's only the first quarter, folks. Lots of time left for a hail Mary or two. Or maybe those promised 100,000 vaccine doses.

This Hound went to the liquor emporium on Labor Day to pick up a six-pack to take to a Labor Day barbecue. What a shock! The premium brew manufactured on an island in Chicago was $8.99. Yikes! At that price, The Hound is thinking low-end brewski.

Unlike most of you, this Hound did not stock up before the big Sept. 1 price increases on liquor, wine, beer, candy, pop and toothpaste. The state increased the tax on candy 525 percent! If this was beer, we'd be in the street and at the barricades.

When are we going to learn about Illinois government, and not in poly sci class? The local lawmakers to the county to the state keep on taxing and spending, taxing and spending. It's enough to make one want to move to Wisconsin. Wait, much of our industry already has!

The Hound has been living in a recession for most of the past decade. If Republicans in the House want to take you all into one, as their president has warned, let them do it. Hope they and their party are ready to face the consequences in the failure Monday to protect the financial basics of the U.S. economy.

Unless you can't add, the financial markets have been taking a beating the last few months or more because of bad mortages, bad debt and bad management. It's a disaster movie befitting a Hollywood blockbuster. Trust me, feather merchants, this could get ugly. Better yet, don't trust me, trust your president, the Fed chairman and every banker from here to What Cheer, Iowa.

The consequences for Republicans, especially those who voted against the $700 billion bailout package is they get voted out and become the minority party for the next 30 years as they were until the GOP revolution of the 1980s. They can run, but they can't hide.

And, don't give The Hound the baloney about nobody bails out the taxpayers. When the taxpayers hold the power to issue business lines of credit, mortgages, car loans, just to name a few financial uses for lent money, then your opinion counts.

Besides, the government does bail out taxpayers. There's unemployment insurance, food stamps, disaster relief. This wouldn't be the first financial bailout. Remember the Resolution Trust Corp. of the '80s and the savings and loan debacle. The Hound was told several Lake County savings and loans got caught up in that financial nosedive.

Looks like the Republicans are holding pat in their crusade to save Main Street from the ills of Wall Street. Good luck because it's a little late for that. Hold on to your wallets folks, it'll be show time today on the Big Board.

Here's a shocker: A new study shows that the leading source of personal bankruptcies in recent years is caused by...overspending. If that's the case, we're living in a bankrupt country.

A professor in the graduate school of management at the University of California-Davis said that while illness and unemployment were the previous primary reasons for filing bankruptcy, Americans just like to spend and spend and spend. No, duh.

Now the government is bailing out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or back about half the nation's mortgage debt, with a plan to inject up to $100 billion
in each of the government-chartered mortgage financiers. That helped the stock market on Monday, which saw stocks rise nearly 300 points. Nothing like gov'mint money to warm a banker's steel heart.

Back to the bankruptcy study, though. The study, which calls for bankruptcy law reform to prevent Americans from just running up debt, says such debt caused half of all recent bankruptcies, while being out of work caused 13 percent of filings and medical calamities, 5 percent.

The study also notes bankrupt households have bigger mortgages, bigger car loans and bigger credit card balances --- and earn half as much money --- than those who are solvent. Sounds like beside an obesity problem in the nation, we have a spending problem. But, then, so does the government.

With July almost half over, you have until July 31 to vote for America's Best Public Restroom. Yesiree, in a nation which has to have the best of everything, except public officials, we now can vote for clean water closets. Is this a great country, or what?

Indeed, this is the seventh annual survey sponsored by the Cintas Corp., which supplies restroom supplies to companies. You can vote at the www.bestrestroom.com Web site and even take a photo tour of the loos. Winners will be announced in August.

There's 10 finalists and, surprisingly, two are in Illinois. The Signature Room at the 95th, which occupies the 95th floor of the Hancock Center in Chicago and Brio Restaurant in Rockford, of all places. Apparently, Brio's restrooms are themed as Heaven for women, hell for men. Hmmm, what's that about?

Also in the top 10 is the Iowa 80 Truck Stop in Walcott, Iowa. Leave it to Iowa to have a truckstop comfort station entered in the competition. Also in the running is the Jerome Bettis Grille 36 in Pittsburgh, named for the former Steelers' fullback.

So vote early and often. And, don't forget to flush.

While many folks are seething over the California state Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn the ban on gay marriages, there's others, besides the happy same-sex couples, who have reason to celebrate --- the wedding industry.

The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law estimates that same-sex weddings could generate up to $683.6 million in additional revenue for the industry over the next three years.

With the current state of the economy, the ruling looks to be particularly good news for jewelers as same-sex couples look to purchase wedding rings and wedding jewelry, according to the Platinum Guild International USA, marketing arm of the platinum jewelry industry.

Though Massachusetts also allows gay marriage, California is the only state where same-sex couples can obtain a marriage license even if they don't live there. The Williams Institute estimates that half of the state's 102,639 same-sex couples will marry by 2011, in addition to 67,500 out-of-state couples. That's a lot of wedding bands to be purchased, nuptials to be catered.

Hotels, wedding planners and vendors in California obviously stand to benefit from ceremonies from the sought-after gay demographic. Gays usually earn more than straights and have more disposable income.

With Illinois tourism generating more than $30 billion last year, a 5.8 percent increase over 2006, maybe the Legislature should investigate a similar law here. Just for the business it could bring --- not for the love.

As The Hound was standing in line at the Post Office for one-cent stamps to match up with the leftover 41-cent stamps which no longer are valid, steam was coming out of those big ears. It was just last year that the U.S. Postal Service raised stamp prices to 41 cents and now the cost of mailing a first-class letter is 42 cents.

Then, The Hound remembered that this is the same USPS whose employees rang up a $13,500 tab at a five-hour feast at a Ruth's Chris Steak House in Orlando, Fla. That's when the steam started pumping like an old Baltimore & Ohio coal train.

This postal order sort of made news last month after the Government Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, discovered the charges made to government credit cards. As far as The Hound is concerned, the national media dropped the ball on this story.

GAO investigators called the 2006 meal "abusive" in its extravagance, according to The Associated Press. That's too kind. How about piggish.

The order included more than $3,000 in drinks, including top-shelf beverages such as Courvoisier cognac, Belvedere vodka and Johnnie Walker Gold Label scotch. Then there was the $500 in shrimp cocktails and $900 in crab cakes --- that's a lot of appetizers. But then again, Ruth's Chris is no late-night diner. It's a classy joint.

According to the GAO breakdown, the diners also had 81 steakhouse salads at $588, and 130 jumbo scallops which totaled $422. Yum, jumbo scallops! Ninety-five people attended the feast and ordered 81 entrees, which the GAO figured averaged $160 per person. That's eating high off the hog!

The USPS defends the dinner, contending it was held to land corporate clients from privately run FedEx and UPS. Taxpayer money, they say, was not involved; the feast was funded by products and services of the USPS.

Uh, aren't stamps products? And they wonder why Americans go postal when the price of stamps rise.

The Hound has noticed a lot of those "recyclable" bags at area food and retail stores. But here's the question that has been bothering The Hound: Is it OK to take a Jewel bag into, say, Dominick's or a Wal-Mart bag into Target?

The Hound has heard of one Dominick's where a manager gave a customer two free bags (theirs are black) rather than seeing her use Jewel bags (dark green).

So, what is the etiquette here? Is it OK to use any bag you have because they are environmentally sound (or so we are told)? Or do your bags have to be store-specific?

Life is just full of questions, right? Next week The Hound will tackle organic foods. Then again, maybe not.

Forget the tax rebate from Uncle Sam. What are you going to do with the money-saving credit that will appear on your May gas bill?
Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas announced this week that the credit will be shown on customers' bills as something called a Volume Balancing Adjustment.
North Shore Gas serves 158,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in 54 communities in Northeastern Illinois. Peoples Gas serves 840,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers, mostly in the city of Chicago.
The total amount of the credit is $1 million. Divided by 998,000 customers, your credit will probably amount to a buck.
Spend it wisely.