TGIF, everyone.  They say we might get some rain today.  I hope so.  The little bit we got yesterday barely moistened my container plants.  Everything is looking pretty good except the little blueberry which has decided to give up, I think.  Let's see what I find on the net.

Our useless (s)news media carried segments on the NSA's long-running program collecting data on ALL Americans' phone usage (who calls whom at what numbers when and for how long).  They also noted that a rather comprehensive program also exists to collect internet usage data.  My only reaction was to ask where these guys have been for the last decade.  Where they have been is featuring stories that interviewed people "on the street" who shrugged and dismissed the whole thing "if it makes us safer."  The questions that are never asked are "safer from what or whom?" and "does it really make us safer?"  When does our own government (assuming it is our government) become more dangerous than the enemies we have been taught to fear?  And who is the "us" whose safety "we" are securing?  I have never felt less secure as our traditional concept of our legal rights have morphed out of any recognizable form.  And I have felt less and less a part of any recognizable "we," and more and more some less protected "other."  I can just image how Xi Jinping (China's President) will respond when Obama brings up Chinese cyber espionage.  Perhaps a remark about how equally sooty the pot's bottom is.

Like most states, Colorado has a serious urban/rural split.  Evidently some want the split to be formalized into a new state.  I wouldn't be surprised it there aren't similar rumblings on the west slope.

What an interesting and contradictory set of stats on jobs have come to light this week.  On the one hand the economy produced more jobs than the experts expected but the unemployment rate went up by a .1%.  At the same time wages fell by the largest amount since such records have been kept.  My translation of the two stories:  the economy created a meager number of jobs, one job for every 3 or 4 people who entered the work force and they are being paid less.  But, hey, the economy is sluggishly improving. (Sarcasm is entirely mine)