Good morning to you all. We had rain and, maybe, some hail late yesterday evening and last night. A good bit of thunder and lightning as well. A large part of the snow is gone and I hope by the end of the week the majority of what is left will be gone as well. Though the temps are not supposed to be warm we expect them to be above freezing. Do you realize that we are only two weeks away from putting our clocks forward again? I still wish they would leave it alone but the politicians don't seem very intent on really serving their fellow citizens.

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I intended to post yesterday but found myself in a depressed/sour/contrary mood. The news is much the same day in, day out. You probably can guess that from the last sentence above. I spent the late morning and afternoon stitching on that table topper I started a couple of weeks ago and listening to Pandora through our new blu-ray player. It was a nice, relaxing day though the news shows in the evening somewhat spoiled it. Too much Oscar/Post-Oscar, Charlie Sheen, and Moammar Qaddafi (however you spell his damned name). I think I will find out how well the player handles music cds. I would much rather listen to music right now than to what passes for news.

The Washington Post has this story this morning and IF the Federal Government can consolidate its agencies and departments we might get somewhere with the budget. I expect it will be a long slog because bureaucrats are nothing if not adept at protecting their turf. And I doubt that the consolidation will hit the root cause--a syndrome akin to the more often found affliction seen in non-governmental society: the' there-oughta-be-a-law syndrome.' The governmental analog says 'if you have a problem create a new agency/department/whatever to deal with it.' They do that instead of identifying whether the problem is one government is best suited to handle and then seeing if their is already an agency that can deal with it efficiently.

I got this report in my e-mail this morning and it makes so much sense that I have to wonder at what kind of advice our Presidents have been getting for the last 50-odd years. I could say more but I won't. I will say that the discussion of the role for diplomacy reminds me very much of what Clausewitz wrote in 'On War' in the late 1820s.