Good Wednesday, Everyone.  Happy Halloween, Samhain, Dia de Los Muertos, etc.  Thankfully, the wind has died down and we spend a quiet night.  I don't think it caused any damage.  Just a bit unsettling, however.  I will go out a bit later when we have more light to see how the plants are doing but from the door (or upstairs window) I can see the tansy, mints, pineapple sage, cabbage, kale and mums.  They are all fine--at least from a distance.  Given what I am seeing on the news from the east coast--we are grateful that all we got was the wind on the very far edge.

Let's see what is on the 'net.

A thought after listening to some of the commentary on the TV concerning the preparedness of various governments (New Jersey, New York, NYC) to handle another storm like Sandy.  It reminds me of some of the discussions after 9/11 spearheaded by or former Vice President Dick Chaney.  He and his friends insisted that we had to prepare 100% for potential terrorist attacks even if those events had only a 1% or less chance of happening.  I thought that was a stupid proposal.  We lost about 3000 people in those attack--not trivial by any means but compared to a population of 300,000,000?  We shoved so much money into 'homeland' security that little towns away from any conceivable targets got armored personnel carriers, heavily armored and armed swat teams, and god only knows what all.  Was that well spent.  The news said that the New York Stock Exchange was last closed for one day in the mid 1980s and the last closure for two consecutive days was 1888.  Three days in the last 130 years.  I looked at the Wikipedia listing for the hurricane history of New York and found only 4 in the last 12 years that caused anything from heavy and widespread flooding in New York City itself.  The question that no one taxed VP Chaney with is how much preparedness is economically sensible.  We are economic beings and make such choices all the time.  Most sensible human beings will prepare for a mid-range of possibilities because that gives the most good for the investment.  I noticed a few of the pundits are asking now if perhaps we should prepare for a 'new' climatic and weather normal.  Maybe.  But anyone want to define what that 'new normal' is?  About five years ago we had such a cold summer that my tomatoes produced very little.  I seriously thought about buying some seeds for the ultra cool and short season tomatoes I saw in a catalog.  I didn't and, until this year, the traditional warm season varieties did very well.  This year it was so hot for so long that nothing was happy especially the tomatoes.  So which is normal?  I have no F$$$$$ idea.

And then there is this.  A short while back, our Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta, warned of a potential 'cyber Pearl Harbor.'  But getting any action appears unlikely any time soon.

The reports on CNBC say that the death toll (so far) from Sandy is 61.  That puts Sandy on top of the list of East Coast storms by number of casualties--just ahead of the 1938 monster storm which killed 60.