Good Tuesday to you all.  We have some brisk winds and expect rain turning to snow over night.  We seem to be in a trough between two areas forecast to get much higher amounts of snow.  However, they aren't expecting anything like what has hit (for the second time) out west.  We plan to get out visit to the Y done early.

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Well, it is now Wednesday and a gloomy day it is.  We did get out as planned yesterday.  The conditions changed in the brief time we were out.  By the time we finished our mile on the track the rain had started.  By the time we got home the walks and parking areas were slick with a thin film of ice.  I just cleared the snow on the patio and part of the ice under it.  I will wait till later to put the deicer  on the cement.  I really hope that the conditions are warm enough to melt it without my assistance.  I would much rather let nature clear off what nature put there.

One of the lead stories on our morning news involved a lawsuit against the parent company of Budweiser for allegedly watering down their product.  Last week it was Markers Mark lowering the alcohol content of their bourbon and then coming back to claim they have reversed that policy.  At least Markers Mark were up front.  The Budweiser people were sneaky (if they did water down the beer--the suit has just been filed and the plaintiffs say they haven't actually tested the beer on the store shelves.)  They simply sold their product without acknowledging on the label the true alcohol content.  For more on the story check out this article.  I find the story interesting as an indication of the level of corporate misbehavior in this country.  I don't drink Budweiser or any other mass market beer.  Since I drink very little beer anyway I prefer something with flavor.

A second thought on that story:  it really doesn't matter whether the beer has been watered down or not.  The damage is done because any trust customers have in the company to provide the product promised is gone.  What I found interesting in my reaction is that I could readily believe it had been done.  Once upon a time I would have been incredulous that a major company would do something that would damage their brand.  Once upon a time a brand meant something.  This incident is simply one more nail in the coffin of brand names.

Then there is this nasty little story.  As usual with a story found on Natural News I checked this out because neither of us had even heard of escolar and Wickipedia had confirming stories and sources.  We aren't great fish eaters anyway but we do like the 'canned' tuna and salmon.  (I put that in quotes because we get the foil pouches--less water.)  We haven't had any of the digestive upsets so I guess they haven't included escolar in that tuna--yet.