Good Wednesday (Day After Christmas), everyone.  Glad to hear from you, Kay.  My ex didn't want the Iron Butterfly album.  We fought over the Highwaymen and Chet Atkins.  I got the Highwaymen and he got Atkins.  Since I bought most of the music I got to keep most of it.  I think Burpee has a heat tolerant tomato I might try this year.  Still working on my shopping list.  I didn't keep a lot of the seeds I had on hand last spring.  I keep records on how many seeds actually germinate and how old the pack is.  Anything over about three years don't germinate well enough to plant again.  So I get to try more new things this year than I normally would.

The news this morning provided another entry in the 'can't trust statistics' file.  We have been told frequently during this Christmas shopping season how wonderfully profitable the powers that be thought it would be.  We have been skeptical especially considering the ridiculously extended hours (like the 500+ continuous hours of operation for one store) and the deeply discounted prices.  Evidently the figures so far indicate a mere 0.7% increase over last year.  I am sure that barely covers the inflation.  Of course, other sources claim much larger sales increases.  So, who do you trust?

In case anyone thought that Fukushima has become part of the distant past here is a blog post I found by way of Bob Brady at PureLandMountain.

I guess this was as inevitable.  We saw corporate America jump on the 'green' bandwagon and on the 'organic' bandwagon while stretching the definitions so far out of shape that anything could be advertised as organic or green.  Now the same process is hitting the 'buy local' movement.  I wonder how they are going to define local.