Good Saturday, All.  Cool and sunny today.  I pulled the marigolds yesterday.  They were looking ragged and tired.  Most of the sites for the variegated marjoram say it is hardy to zone 4 (we're in zone 5) or to -30F.  I will test that this winter.  I hope to get some of the cleaning up in the shed done today.  The only herb I will get another cutting on is the stevia.  Areas to the east are expecting frosts over the week though we, thanks to the lake, are not supposed to go that low.
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It is now Sunday--sunny and cool again.  Didn't see much to comment on yesterday.  I transplanted all of the variegated marjoram into the beds--even the one I had planned to overwinter inside.  I don't think I liked it inside.  The weather people forecast overnight lows for Friday and next Saturday at 36 and 31 respectively.  We may get frosts after all.  I may take the stevia this week as well as the patchouli and basil.  I still have some peppers on the plants. We'll see how they survive weather the week.

I debated whether to link to this story and finally decided I would.  I saw the initial story yesterday which focused on the casualties.  Today the headline focuses on the possible world wide shortage of---diapers.  Yes--I did say 'diapers.'  The chemical plant produced the largest quantity of a key ingredient used in making diapers.

This is another story I debated commenting on.  Most of those who come down on the side of free speech being an absolute, unassailable value forget the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in Schenck v United States--

he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

I would say the idiot who made Innocence of Muslims pushed into the area of creating a 'clear and present danger of bringing about the substantive  evils.'  And he forgot Jesus' words in Luke 6:31--"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  I don't think Jesus made any exceptions.  There was no asterisk leading to a passage which said that the Golden Rule didn't apply to non-believers.  In the end, I think the only way to pull the fangs of the repulsive snakes who spew their poison and hide behind the First Amendment is consider the benighted source and let it go.  I don't expect that to happen any time soon so I don't really have any satisfactory answer.

I wonder if this is what the European 'Troika' had in mind when they insisted on unending 'austerity.'  For anyone who doesn't remember from the Greek elections of the last summer, Golden Dawn is a neo-Nazi party and their tactics are very reminiscent of those employed by the original Nazis.

Janinsanfran has a comment that ties the just ended NFL referee strike and the blown call that had everyone going ballistic last week to the current labor wars that are erupting all over the country.  I can take it a bit farther.  "Cheap" has now been defined as 'getting our money's worth.'  Once upon a time we would pay for quality--now we want quality but we don't want to pay for it.  And along with that we have lost the ability to judge quality.  We don't even know what is worth paying for any more.