Good morning, All.  Another day of above average temps and sun.  I will get a bit more puttering done on the patio.  I still have two large containers to take care of.  I left them for last because I still haven't made up my mind if I want to try to over winter the plants or just start new next spring.  By the end of the coming week I will have that all figured out and the tent frames up over the two (maybe three) containers that will contain all of the hardy plants I hope will come up next season.  So far that includes the three roses, the mums, the German Thyme, and the three blueberries.  The only question marks now are the lemon balm and lavender.  Lemon balm started from seed very easily and lavender I can find at the garden shops and nurseries easily.  The books say that both don't really produce well until the second and third years but the lemon balm produced very well this first year.  My rosemary. lemon verbena and bay tree are doing nicely so far.  The only problem has been the sunlight--all need much more than they get on the shelf by our north facing patio door.  So our daily ritual now includes moving them to the south facing front door where they will get stronger light and full sun at least 5 hours a day.

Huffington Post put this story up this morning--another nasty Repthuglican piece of legislation.  I don't know which 'nanny state' interference is worse--the right wing or the left wing.  The broad cast news from South Bend had a story about the Danish tax on fatty foods and the readers wondered it such a tax would fly over here.  And our worthless senators and representatives insist on dealing with this worthless crap instead of really working out something that will help relieve the economic mess.

The news media has carried stories about the Haqqani network working across the Pakistan/Afghanistan border attacking US facilities and troops.  Here is what they haven't said:  we created them.  Just like the Taliban.

Just an observation on the news coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement:  the pundits are supposedly trying to understand what the 'movement' wants.  They universally find the aims incomprehensible and they convey that confusion to their viewers.  For example, most of the 'man on the street' interviews almost invariably featured the most incoherent spokesmen they could find.  But no one seems to remember that the Tea Party Movement was, and is, almost equally contradictory and incoherent.  Why do they give so much respect to the latter and none to the former?  Could it be that the corporate masters understand the Tea Party mantra of social conservatism and government spending cuts but can't (or don't want to understand) the OWS demands for prosecution of financial fraud and corporate criminality?  I saw a teaser for an interview with Milton Friedman once (didn't see the interview and can't remember the interviewer) where he claims that throughout history all societies have been fueled by greed.  I would agree but also observe that throughout history every society and every religion has attempted to curb greed.  No society has lasted very long if greed has been allowed to run rampant.