Hello, again. Now that the garden tour is over I will go on to other things.

I saw a fascinating discussion on CNBC yesterday. The talking heads were genuinely perplexed. They saw the Dow settle over 10k with a triple digit gain but couldn't to save their lives tell anyone why it went up. The data is no more hopeful than it has been for the last week which saw, I think, 6 or 7 losing days. I found it fascinating to watch them scratch their heads.

I will be so very glad when LeBron James extravaganza is over although that simply means that the news shows will have to scramble to find another equally meaningless and vacuous story on which to waste their time and ours.

Karoli at Crooks and Liars makes some interesting points. I don't doubt at all that businesses, especially big businesses, are planning some big expenditures to 1) shift the balance in the House and Senate back towards Republicans, and 2) to ensure the election of a Republican to the White House in 1012. I linked to an article yesterday which indicated that Wall Street firms have dramatically shifted their political spending in favor of the Republicans. Our corporate masters have not been happy with Obama's administration.

Carolyn Baker has an very good post on The Energy Bulletin today. She articulates many of the dissatisfactions I experienced some time ago. Unlike her, I never found a teaching career in higher education though I spend many years preparing for such and acquiring in the process several degrees (though never the coveted Ph.D.) Her assessment of students, as of the time of my last contact with them (as a teaching assistant and as an adjunct lecturer), is absolutely right on. I found a few, very few, who came in with the tools (math and language skills) and the desire to learn that transcended the goals for which they were pursuing their education. Unfortunately, most were in my history classes because the course was a bothersome requirement for their degree. Her conclusions concerning the student loan situation are unfortunately absolutely correct. Several years ago I read another article which described it as debt servitude. I can only agree.