Good Monday to you all wherever you are.  We had sun on and off yesterday as well as a couple of brief periods of snow.  We didn't get much.  The predictions keep changing which isn't all that unusual.  But the temperatures are highly unusual and the predictions tell us to expect high 40s--maybe even a 50F.  I wouldn't mind sending you some of our warmth if I could, Nicola.  I just looked up the 'la Nina' climate pattern because I thought that was supposed to be a cold and dry system.  I was right on that but the articles say that 2011 was the warmest la Nina on record.  Hmmm!

Obama mentioned congressional reforms in his SOTU alluding to the problems with the way filibuster has morphed into a means to prevent anything from passing in the Senate without a supermajority.  However, this is another item that needs to be reformed.  These despicable idiots can't get their masters' pet projects through on the merits of the project so they attach it to another bill that has more support.  And then for added fluff they call it a 'jobs' bill.  How about single topic bills with no riders.  Keep the bills strictly highway bills (or defense bills, or whatever) not these bastard many-headed monsters.

We have been somewhat amused by the news reports over the last few days.  Suddenly the media has noticed rising beef prices.  We wonder what world these guys live in because we have watched the prices at the grocery go up for the last five years.  It is almost as if they can't make the connection between repeated droughts in the southwest and southern plains and high beef prices.  Or the connection between increasing prices for hay and feed and price.  Or the interesting statistic that cattle numbers in the U.S. are the lowest since the end of WWII.  Or the fact that we are exporting more beef to newly affluent countries whose new and growing middle classes want beef.  Did someone hit the media masters between their eyes with two-by-fours??  And not a one has asked why, if the prices of beef (and other foods) have gone up so much (double digits) our inflation is supposed to be so low that cost of living raises have been rarer than hens' teeth??