Good Morning, Everyone. We had a dusting of snow overnight. No troublesome accumulation. The weather people say we may get a bit more tonight. Most of the snow that dumped on us in early December and stayed for Christmas is gone--just patches in the shady areas left.

The mini-greenhouse we ordered from Jung arrived. It is a nicely compact package and we hope that we will be able to get it easily back in the box to store it for next winter. It looks like a simple snap together system and should work quite nicely in the area I plan to put it. They included two trial packets of seeds that look very interesting--a double sunflower that looks like a chrysanthemum and a ground cherry. I never heard of ground cherry but it is supposed to be sweet and have a strawberry-like flavor. I need to do some research on it.

I agree, Lois. When ever the political news is quiet I look for when the sledgehammer is going to fall. I may not have to wait for long. Already the Republicans in the house are backpedaling on their campaign promises of transparency and procedure. Take a look at this article on Politico to see what I mean.

And then what should I read right after the Political piece on the shenanigans the Republicans are pulling with the effort to repeal the health care reform law but this from the L.A. Times. Just this time last year Anthem Blue Cross tried the same thing. I just love the argument the company used to justify an increase on as many as one-fourth of their customers of 59% (the rest will suffer the relatively mild increase of 30-35%). They say they have to contend with rapidly rising health care costs and the costs imposed by the new health care reforms (most of which have not even kicked in yet and many of which won't until 2014).

If this article on HuffingtonPost is accurate perhaps the Federal Reserve is going to get serious about regulating the mortgage industry. I still have a major problem with the notion that fraud (the signing and filing false affidavits) is not being prosecuted as the crime it is. But so far I haven't heard of a single criminal case. But the article raises another set of alarm bells in my mind. One would think that we wouldn't need such a simple regulation as the requirement that payments be promptly credited to the correct account. That is simply good business practice. Or would be in a sane business world not run by thieves and grifters. What does this say about our current business climate? What does it say about our political system when the Federal Reserve has to be brought kicking and screaming to accept the need for such rules by a revolt by the FDIC?