Good Morning, again, everyone. It is wet outside today so I won't be doing much in the gardens. Mom used some of the dried tomatoes in a casserole yesterday just to see how they would do. They were sweeter than fresh and a little chewier but otherwise not much different. She looks forward to using more of them over the winter and has asked me to plant more of the salsa tomatoes next year for sauce and drying. Sounds like a plan to me.

HuffingtonPost had this story this morning. I think the big banks should buy back the bad loans they sold to Freddie and Fannie. If the two GSEs hadn't bought mortgages over the last two years the entire housing market, including the mortgages the banks thought were solid enough to keep, would have gone down a black hole. Statistics earlier this summer showed that the only houses moving were those sold for cash and those backed by Freddie and Fannie. We bailed out those bastards now let them return the favor.

HuffingtonPost also had this report that should scare the pants off everyone. I might not find it disturbing if it weren't the FOURTH such story I have seen this summer. The others were along the mid-Atlantic and New England coast. And that picture is mind-boggling. I doubt that the oil eating bacteria cited in the story are the cause of the three Atlantic fish kills but no one has explained those incidents. And if the bacterial are the cause of the Louisiana kill--how many more might there be?? BP may have 'solved' one problem (those oh so visible and embarrassing slicks of oil) with their techno-fix (dispersant chemicals) but may have created another one. (Update: the noon news claims that the official explanation is a sudden increase in the water temperature issue.)