Hello, everyone.  Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous.  We tied a 115-year-old record when we hit 74 degrees.  The sun was absolutely wonderful.  We didn't get a lot done--just luxuriated in the hint of summer to come.  The container gardens are progressing as is the house cleaning.  Because we have been so focused on those items I haven't done a lot of needlework and haven't had anything to show off.

Dean Baker at TMP Cafe has an interesting way to handle the AIG mess.   Basically put the burden on the private shareholders who still own 20% of AIG.  If they aren't up in arms about this (and one has to ask where the hell they were when the contracts the lawyers are claiming are inviolable were negotiated) then they should pay for them.  James Kwak, also at TPM Cafe, makes some more good points--not just about AIG but about the whole financial industry and its relationship to the Federal government, and about the basic philosophy and assumptions governing the relationship between the two.  As for me, I am incredibly sick and tired of these arrogant bastards.  This is the second (maybe third?--it is hard to recall numbers) time that AIG bonuses (specifically) caused a spike in moral indignation.  These guys simply don't get it.  Anyone, under other conditions, with this kind of learning curve would have become extinct already.  We put the idiots on life support.