Good morning to you all.  We have sun!! At least for a while.  We are supposed to get rain later this evening.

I am a bit conflicted about snow, Kay.  I don't like the notion of having to shovel out the patio or driving in the mess but I also would like a nice blanket of snow to further insulate my containers.  Well, ready or not it will come and probably not in a convenient quantity.

I am not surprised about the failure of the Occupy movement to take off where you are.  I haven't seen any here either.  But then the Tea Party never took off in my area.  I saw only one of those demonstrations here.  I noticed a story on this morning's Good Morning, America that covered a 'backlash' anti-Occupy demonstration in the Northwest (sorry, I forgot exactly where).  I was cynically amused by one of the signed which objected to the annoyance of the Occupy demonstration.  So Americans now seem to want dissent so long as they are not in any way inconvenienced.  I was also somewhat amused by the continued criticism that the Occupy movement has no real expressed demands.  They have about as many specific demands as the Tea Party.  What these two movements tell me is that the whole damned system is broken.  In other words, specific demands make sense when a bit of tinkering will remedy problems but when the entire system is broken a bit of tinkering simply won't cure the situation.  And a good many of us will be more than annoyed by that process.

I absolutely love the title on this article.  That (not-so-)Supercommittee was indeed an end-run around democracy.  But then, perhaps, we should get used to this tactic.  After all, we saw the same thing in Greece and Italy where 'technocrat' (non-elected, non-politician economicst) governments were installed because the politicians (who depend on voters' approval) couldn't do what is being demanded of the without committing political suicide.  I also saw a story over the weekend that claims that Angela Merkel was at odds with David Cameron (Germany and England, respectively) over whether a referendum on certain aspects of the EU treaties should be held.  She thought not (as she also did with respect to the proposed referendum on Greek austerity).  I said when the Greek drama was going on that the governments of Europe (and elsewhere) are in favor of democracy in theory but not in fact.