Hope your Friday is going well.  Sunny so far but we may have thunderstorms later.  Hope not.  We did not get the winds that went through a bit west of here with the usual damage from falling tree limbs and such.  I got the first of the pots with more than one strawberry plant cleaned out and the plants repotted.  I have at least three more to do.  I also got the planter I plant to put the extras in cleaned out and ready.  On my early morning check of the gardens I found the yardlong beans were sending their vines into one of the strawberry plants.  I managed to unwind the two without damaging either.  Some six or eight strawberry runners to get potted so they will root.  For the rest, I have some trimming to do.

Well, Duh!!!!  What the hell good is it if students are educated in science, technology, and math if they can't communicate the ideas of those fields to others?  And if they can't write clearly are they really reading with any comprehension?  Questions that aren't even being asked in the various controversies over education today.

This is a stronger argument for seriously curtailing or even eliminating taxpayer support of University research than the various stories of WTF research programs.   You know what I mean--the stories about the "wasted" money spent on really loony studies that have no apparent benefit to anyone.  Or better that we insist that any research done with any government support is totally public and what ever benefits from that research is broadly and affordably distributed throughout society.

Golem XIV has some very interesting thoughts on secrets and lies.  I wonder how many people are like us here--we don't believe much of what our "experts," politicians, and other movers and shakers say.  I wonder how many are like me--once a news "junkie" who can't stand most of the "news" programs anymore.  I don't consider wall-to-wall coverage of the Zimmerman trial or the Duchess of Cambridge's maternity fashions or other such fluff and nonsense news.

This Huffington Post piece underlines  the points made by Golem XIV.  What better way to get your lies across than to inundate the (s)news media with anonymous "sources."