Please, sir, I want some more!

Yes, ladies and gents. Looks like we have a run on rice in America.

They say it isn't that big a deal, but I also just heard truckers on the news saying they're close to refusing certain long-haul jobs due to the cost of diesel, which apparently is high enough that many trips would actually cost them to undertake.

On the other hand, we're in the midst of earnings season, and we've had many surprises to the upside, including "crappy" old Ford today (which made me some ca-ching for a change). The only thing worrying me? Much of this news is from companies making their money overseas. Ford did it by cutting 46,300 jobs stateside and increasing its presence abroad:

Ford's pretax loss in its North America region narrowed to $45 million from $613 million a year earlier. Pretax profit rose to $257 million in South America from $113 million. It increased to $739 million for Ford of Europe from $219 million. The company's operations in Asia Pacific and Africa posted a pretax profit of $1 million after a $26 million deficit a year earlier.

``The international results really helped,'' Mikelic said.

So, just to be safe, start stockpiling that Charmin. It's gonna be worth a mint!