Good Morning to you all. The thunderstorms did not make an appearance yesterday for which I am grateful. Rain is one thing--serious storms another entirely. And it got hot enough that I had to water some of the smaller containers late in the day. Because of the rain yesterday morning we delayed our errands till this morning.

Well, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been found guilty on 17 of the 20 corruption charges with which he was charged. I was really, really, really pissed off with the news coverage. Evidently the local ABC station (the one we normally watch for news) had wall-to-wall coverage from about 1pm when (I think) the verdict was announced till almost through the 5pm news. Frankly, I would have preferred to see Jeopardy.

I am still royally pissed off because they are continuing the coverage this morning bringing in the foreman of the previously jury and everyone else who might have provide some minimal bit of drama. And other news stories have simply added to the irritation. Yesterday several of the talking heads talked about the Greek situation and the dissension in Greece. Their comments seemed to sympathize with with contentions of the bankers that the people of Greece deserve severe austerity because they have overspent for so long, lived beyond their means for so long. The people of Greece don't deserve the pain of austerity because it was their politicians who created the situation just like the politicians at all levels over here have created a parallel situation. Meredith Whitney was just on CNBC talking about the problem of under-funded pension with special reference to New Jersey. She generally talks sense but her focus is on the here-and-now without any reference to the history of the situation--the long line of political decisions to underfund the pensions. Rick Santelli did make a nod to the history of the situation. The problem I have with the whole discussion is the the pain of getting out of the morass will fall most heavily on those who had the least to do with the situation. I wish I didn't absolutely believe that however this resolves itself the people at the top of the economic and political food chains will get off with minimal sacrifice (if any) while the rest of us are screwed.

I just got another shot of irritation when one of the talking heads on CNBC (sorry, I didn't see his name) compared Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to living on credit cards. Somehow buying something now and paying for it later is comparable to paying for something now and enjoying it later. Now, as someone who has had credit cards (and who will never have one again) and who has also paid the taxes supporting Social Security taxes since age 18 that the situations are entirely different. And the situation for my generation (the so-called baby boomers) is even worse. In the early 1980s the payroll taxes were raised because Alan Greenspan and the supporting cast of politicians raised the alarm over the strain so many retirees would place on the system and argued that we should 'pre-pay' for the benefits we were promised. We have done that for the last nearly 30 years. But now that there is a $2.5 trillion dollars in the alleged trust fund, they want to loot it for whatever program they want and we are greedy geezers for fighting that looting.

Well, talk about looting--this gives us an idea of where whatever passes for Eric Cantor's heart is. If he is wearing a red/white/blue flag pin (which has become almost part of the Republican uniform) maybe he should replace it with a gold dollar sign. That is where his loyalty really lies.