Good Morning, Everyone. There hasn't been much to say lately. Everything seems much of a muchness, as that silly old saying goes. Nothing is happening in Washington. I am not sure if that is a good thing over all or a bad thing. The Republicans and their allies (read: Liberman et al.) stymie what ever they can, snipe whenever they can and sanctimoniously pretend they are doing it for the good of the country. The Democrats aren't any better and we have a Democratic President who can't see that bi-partisanship requires two partners to get anywhere. The economy is still in the toilet and I don't expect it to improve (at least at my level) any time soon. Almost everything any of the mainstream pundits say about politics or economics seem so out of touch that I wonder what they have been smoking, or ingesting. They seem to be on a perpetual high.

Oh, well, enough carping. We have had snow most days since before Christmas and are getting more for most of this week. The weather people think we may get near normal temps sometime next week. Hope so. And we hope the forecast for Sunday is accurate since we have a birthday party that day--the one we thought was last Sunday is actually next Sunday. We put it on the calendar wrong.

I found this on MSNBC this morning. We caught a snippet on the morning news--which was about all the local news readers provided. Why should anyone be surprised that such a large percentage of American workers are unhappy? Even the article only scratches the surface of the problem.

The New American has a post that links to a Washington Post article I saw a little while ago. Any one ever wonder what happens to what the power generating companies and others accumulate in the scrubbers that take pollutants out of the smoke they generate? I didn't until I read this. Evidently it accumulates into a synthetic gypsum and they are piling up a really large amount of the stuff. Some they have made into wall board for construction so, if you have done any remodeling or building lately, you may have it in your home. But the demand for wall board is, evidently, not sufficient to take up all of what they produce. So now the EPA is encouraging farmers to spread the stuff as fertilizer on their fields. Instead of falling as acid rain all that sulfur, lead, antimony, arsenic and other heavy metals will be spread on the fields as fertilizer??? Makes a lot of sense doesn't it.

Mike The Mad Biologist links to another story, from the New York Times, that I read a couple of days ago. I didn't write anything at the time because I am really at a loss for words on so many levels. Late last fall, Mom and I decided that we were going to grind our own hamburger after reading about where the hamburger was coming from. Noticing also that the price of the cuts of beef and pork we would be using was equal to the price of the hamburger that was almost 30% added fat and fillers also helped move us in that direction. This simply reinforces that decision yet again. But I have had a very nasty thought--what about the pet food? Does any of this shit get into that?? Anybody got an answer?

Paul Farrell has an interesting post on MarketWatch today. If you are an economic optimist it just might make you reconsider.