Good Thursday to all of you.  It is sunny and cool with expectations for the low 80s.  I don't have any gardening planned today.  The mints I dried yesterday I should grind today.  But that is about all.  Let's see what is on the net today.

Several days ago we drove over by a local shopping center on our way to the Target and Home Depot. A Kohls store is also located there and we saw a huge sign reading "Kohls--Shame Shame Shame on you."  We wondered what was going on thinking perhaps it reflected a labor dispute.  Perhaps not.  I found this right off this morning.  I am not really surprised.  Not all that long ago, when a number of retailers when out of business, stories appeared showing that the companies hired to sell off the inventory, the sales advertised were no sales at all.  The prices were jacked back to above what had been the usual prices before the closing and then discounted.  Customers often found they were paying the everyday price for items supposedly 50+% off.  Scamming seems to have become the business tactic to choice now-a-days.

As if my conclusion above required any further proof, here it is.  I have to ask--have we become a nation of psycho-/sociopaths?

I found this on Natural News and I didn't follow my usual habit of checking the sources.   The Gallup Poll cited seems to accurately reflect our assessment of the so-called news media.  I usually call it the (s)news media (snooze+news a term I pirated from a friend some years ago.  Thanks Lynn)  It doesn't matter whether the media is broadcast, cable, or print.  Our complaints, you ask?  Important stories are given a two line segment while fluff get 2-5 minutes.  I don't care that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian had a baby.  So the British Royal Family is expecting another heir--and that means what to me?  Accuracy has been sacrificed to speed and sensationalism.  And they go for the visual even when when their picture adds nothing to the story.  The teasers are annoying--we wish they would simply tell the story rather than telling us what they are going to tell us after the commercial break.  And then the teaser is longer than the story.  What is there to trust?

I just love stories about corporate extortion.  If someone pulled a gun and demanded your money--it is a crime.  A corporation or company says they will lay of scads of workers if the state doesn't give them money (or tax breaks or other expensive perks)--it is just business.  I ask wtf is the difference?