Good Morning, again, everyone. I had errands to run yesterday so I didn't post anything. It was so hot that when I got back I just vegetated with a couple of novels. This morning I got out in the garden containers and did some work. Took three nice eggplants (two ichiban and one fairy tales), several salsa tomatoes, and a handful of beans. I pulled the broccoli and moved some of the small pots into that container along with the stevia which clears up some space on the patio. I won't water today unless the small containers look dry this afternoon. I think we got a little of the rain that came through last night. But most of the systems still jump over us. The weather people say we might get more this evening.

HuffingtonPost's Laura Bassett has found an economist who is actually making some sense on the issue of the Bush tax cuts (which Republicans fervently wish to extend across the board) and jobs. To cut to the chase, just extending the cuts won't do much to stimulate either jobs or the economy. A better plan would take the money that the expiration of the cuts would raise and spend it on unemployment benefits, food stamps and other programs that affect the lowest levels of the economy. I have said that for some time--put the money to work among those who have to spend it.

Last time I posted I had a couple of stories and a comment or two about privacy. Today I found this story. Of the two I find the government lapses in the last post more troubling.

Then there is this little story. I find it interesting in light of all of the blather I heard on MSNBC about the signs of recovery in the housing market. I think the remarks on the effect of the tax credits (and their expiration) are interesting. I have suspected that much of the stimulus would be, for the most part, temporary. That is pretty well what has happened. And I think the estimates that the economists quoted in the story for when the housing market will recover are rosy.

I was tempted to let this story go without comment. It has become all too common and the mind-boggling sums almost numbingly unreal. What really bothers me is these are the kind of people who would have been handling money diverted from Social Security if Bush had gotten his way and the program had been privatized. It is bad enough as it is with every President and every Congress since God only knows when pretending to borrow it to fund what they didn't want to raise taxes to pay for.