Good morning, Everyone.  Yesterday was one of those days when I just didn't want to do anything and couldn't find anything worth commenting on or linking to.  The day itself was very pretty once the snow stopped and the sun appeared--which it did by about 11am.  I did get two of the little milk jug micro-green houses filled with potting soil, planted with spinach and put outside.  But that is about all I did--besides read.  Later in the week the weather people predict mid 40s again.  I will see about setting up the little plastic tents over some of my containers.  I also need to find the seed-starting trays in the shed and clear off shelf space for them inside.  I want to start peppers and tomatoes during the first week of March.

I did see the news stories that new arrests have been made in the U.K. in connection with the Murdoch scandal, Nicola.  I can't say much more about it than I have before.  Unfortunately, no one has really commented on the root problem in this and similar stories.  The only standard in modern capitalism is money and it doesn't really matter how that money is made.  Put more plainly--capitalism does not provide either ethical or moral standards.  And as far as legal standards?  Well, it appears than anything that you can get away with or for which the monetary penalties are a fraction of the profits made are acceptable as far as our financial elite is concerned.

Well, the news this morning concentrated almost entirely on Whitney Houston's death.  Sorry about that but is it really worth all the time devoted to it?  A short, decorous announcement would have been sufficient but we don't seem to remember how to do decorous.

Everyone's talking about the weather.  And this is why.

Maha has some very good comments on that very surreal 'controversy' between the Catholic bishops and the religious Right wing nuts and President Obama over contraception.  All through it all I had the dizzy feeling that comes when the news reports are so far off my perception of reality.  Repeated polls show overwhelming support for contraception so I can only think that our unfriendly neighborhood bishops and religious idiots are living with their heads up their asses.  For the most part women are ignoring them until the shrill nonsense annoys past bearing as it did in Oklahoma.  Too bad the amendments were withdrawn.  This from Crooks & Liars.