Good morning on this cool, windy and wet Friday.  We did get some sunshine yesterday and, after we got back from picking up Mom's new glasses, I got the blueberries put into their winter home.  I will sneak out between the rain drops today and put my milk jug cloches over them for the next couple of nights.  I also got the last of the peppers and tomatoes.  Now I need to clear out the spent stalks.  The wind howled all night and I was afraid I would have to chase down the plastic pots I have on the shelves of the mini-greenhouse.  But they stayed in place.  That is something else I have to do over the weekend--move all of them into the shed for the winter.

The mainstream media have featured the new debit card fees Bank Of America plans to start collecting prominently on their news shows.  For more information you can read about it here.  A few months ago Ariana Huffington pushed a movement urging pissed-off customers to move their money to more friendly local banks who might actually appreciated them.  What pisses me off (I already patronize a small local bank) is that we bailed out those bastards.

This is a possibility I sincerely hope doesn't come to pass.  And on the other end of the North American continent comes this story.

Wouldn't you love to land a job where you get a multi-million dollar sign on bonus, where you preside over a multi-million dollar loss for the company, and where you are fired after 11 months and leave with a multi-million dollar severance package?  Well, Leo Apotheker, lately of HP, got exactly that.  And he isn't alone.  Once, more years ago than I care to remember, I tutored a chemistry major who was having difficulty.  He complained, thankfully with good humor, that he worked harder in the history class than he did in any chemistry and simply couldn't get the material.  I remember thinking, but didn't say since the kid really was trying, that our old mantra that hard work leads to success should be amended to read that hard work that yields good results leads to success.  Now I have to throw the whole concept out.  Success is just a crap shoot: some of us have good luck but most of us would have no luck at all if it weren't for our bad luck.

Good Thursday morning, Everyone.  Still hoping for a bit of a dry period to get the blueberries in the ground.  If not today I will have to bring them inside until the weekend.  The weather people say we may get some frost in the 'outlying' areas.  That may or may not include us but I should get the tents on the containers I want to keep plants in over winter.  Our average first frost comes in mid-October.  The way our crazy weather is going it might be early.  Or it might not.

Well, this merely confirms what we knew all along--the prices we pay for food have gone up, for the most part.  We noticed when we bought milk and juice this week.

This report has made the rounds on the internet but hasn't been mentioned in the mainstream media--except perhaps in very forgettable in passing comments.  Question--with the median income somewhere in the mid-$40ks (depending on which estimate you find) and the premiums (for businesses) for a high deductible policy ($2500 deductible), what makes us think the costs can be shifted to individuals?  The $15k+ policy premium is one-third of that (pre tax) median income!!!  I love the intro paragraph--if the premium increases of the next 10 years follow the last 10 years--that price will double.  Does anyone really think that business will continue to absorb that kind of increase or that individual income will rise to the point where the employee can pay it?

I agree, Lois.  The amounts of money being thrown around in elections coupled with the amounts involved in lobbying is simply obscene.  Money comes in and facts, common sense, and common welfare go out.  The news this morning said that the Obama campaign may not make that goal but the lesser amounts are still mind boggling.  And I agree on the news.  For my sanity I don't watch as much any more.  I have several problems with the media as it stands.  It is way too superficial.  It panders to the perceived audience need for controversy. To generate controversy it looks for opposing positions no matter how inane that opposition might be.  And it has way too much fluff and repetition especially of that fluff.  At least I can delete or ignore much of that nonsense if I am reading printed or on-line copy.

Good morning to you all.  We have wet weather again today.  I wish we could send some of this down to Texas and other drought stricken areas.  We have had more than enough.  If I don't find a dry patch sometime today I think I will have to bring my blueberries in for the next couple until it clears up.

I have always admired Gloriana (a.k.a. Elizabeth I), Lois.  She inherited a nearly bankrupt country--thanks to her father's extravagance.  That extravagance included very expensive military adventures which gained very little.  By the time she died in 1603 she left a prosperous and wealthy country.

The local CBS news this morning covered a report (sorry, I forget by which organization) on ways Chicago could close its massive budget gap.  They included turning Lake Shore Drive into a toll road--described as a 'non-starter' by one of the interviewees--and a 1% income tax.  Emanuel ran on the notion that his administration would not raise taxes but how long he can keep that pledge is a big question. His education department is already planning to increase the property tax rates to the maximum allowed by state law. As I listened to that I thought about Herman Cain's proposal to reform taxes--his '9-9-9' plan.  He thinks restructuring the Federal tax code so that individual and corporate tax rates are each 9% with no deductions and adding a Federal sales tax of 9% would cure our fiscal ailments.  I don't know about anyone else but paying a sales tax of 15.25% sales tax (9% Federal + 6.25% state) doesn't sound like a great deal.  Or think about Chicago where the rate would be around 20% (9% Federal + 11% state/county/city).  That doesn't sound like such a great deal.  Worse the sales taxes hit the lowest income groups hardest.  And reducing the income tax on individuals to a flat 9% results in a massive stealthy tax cut for those at the top of our economic food chain while those at the bottom, who would lose more proportionately with the loss of the exemptions, would be slammed.  And the Repthuglicans are bitching about 'class warfare.'???

I have asked frequently over the last couple of years what would happen when a significant part of the population lost faith in our supposedly democratic government.  I say 'supposedly' because a democratic political system in which money rules is not democratic and that is what we have now.  Well this story gives some some indications which answers my (rhetorical) question.  I notice that the article concentrates on young voters and their disillusionment.  But I am 62 and I have become increasingly disillusioned for several reasons.  First, my choices are not really choices.  I feel somewhat like Harry Mud in the original Star Trek series when Spock tells him that the death sentence he fled left him with several choices--death by hanging, beheading, gas, etc.  Death is death; it is not a choice.  I am left with political choices that are not really choices--between Repthuglicans bought by the moneyed interests who don't care a damn about me and others like me except for how much they can squeeze out of me and Damnocrats who talk the talk but fail to walk the walk and are equally bought.  Second, there is the moral dilemma of participating in a rigged political system that makes morally repugnant decisions and covers itself in the righteousness of the 'consent of the governed.'  I find myself screaming more and more often:  I DID NOT CONSENT TO THIS!!!  And third, the democracy appears more frequently as a smoke and mirror game of manipulation.  Both parties claim that the majority of Americans supports their view/actions/positions but the positions are diametrically opposed. And the game has been one of pandering to some, demonizing others, and doing what ever will get you elected and destroying the chances of the other party doing anything constructive even if that means opposing sensible proposals you once supported.  I don't think democracy can remain democracy in anything but name when hypocrisy and manipulation rule the day.

Crooks & Liars posted this and it makes a lot of sense.  The Repthuglicans have touted two groups as the 'job creators' in their fevered rhetoric:  the rich/big business and 'small' business.  With big businesses sitting on a couple trillion and not hiring the 'job creation' title seems a bit hollow.  The NPR interview puts small business job creators into a cocked hat as well.  The points reflect my own observations of the small businesses I have been in any way involved with in the recent past.  The party store I worked at for the three years it was in existence started out with four full timers and the owner.  We full timers soon found ourselves working part time and at the end we had only two part-timers and the owner.  Throughout the life of the store the owner had eight employees.  Only one (me) was there the entire time.  Also the last employee hired came in at $1 less per hour than the original employees started.  And no benefits.  Unusual?  Not really.  I patronized two quilt shops one of which is still operating.  Both employees only one part time employee in addition to the owner.  When the one shop went out of business two people lost their jobs.  The law firm I worked for for about 18 months consisted of two lawyers (the owner of the firm who worked 3 days a week and another lawyer who worked one day), the head paralegal (married to the owner and working 3 days a week), and 7 paralegals/legal secretaries who all worked between 8 and 32 hours per week.  At the time I was let go the number of paralegals was down to 4 working 32 hours/week.  I think the owner has since retired meaning that all of the remaining jobs disappeared.  So between these four small businesses we are talking about 19 jobs of which only two still exist today.  Actually the point is reinforced by the Department of Labor's use of birth/death statistics (assumptions) when calculating the latest unemployment rate.  They assume that the number of new start-ups equals the number of failures and that the number of jobs between the two balances also.  These assumptions maybe very far off which is why so often the labor statistics are vastly different when the revisions come in a month or two later.

Hello, again, Everyone.  Another rainy and cool morning.  Hopefully it will clear off and dry out a bit later.  That is what it did yesterday.  The blueberry plants arrived yesterday and I want to get them in the container.  At least the rain takes care of watering the remaining plants.

I don't know how anyone can see this as democratic.  The amounts of money involved in politics is nothing less than obscene.  It makes prostitution look positively wholesome.  And the Damnocrats are equally rapacious.  Obama's reelection campaign hopes to raise $1 billion or more for the campaign.

I just turned off the morning news in disgust--again!!  CBS (local and national) had repeated extended stories about last night's episode of Dancing With The Stars.  I am so sick of the network spending significant portions of the news broadcasts for four (and sometimes more) days on that fluff program.  I don't mind them showing it but I absolutely hate having the damn thing shoved down my throat.  But CNN was not any better giving a lot of space to an allegedly racist and sexist 'bake sale' by some damned Repthuglican Student organization on a California Campus.  They supposedly wanted to highlight the inequities of affirmative action.  What I wish is that some more liberal group would hold a competing bake sale using the same distribution of prices to demonstrate how they reflect the pay disparity among groups.  But why does it deserve three days of free publicity.


Casey Daily Dispatch has a piece today that reflects much of my way of thinking on our foreign policy.  High school fights weren't (and probably aren't) a Southern thing.  We had plenty in my day also.  And he is absolutely correct in his assessment--the escalation is inevitable and increasingly costly.  Unfortunately, our foreign policy resembles nothing so much as the testosterone over-loaded high school pissing matches.  Perhaps I shouldn't use that image since the girls were as bad as the boys.  However, the bottom line is that we have spent at least three times the value of the property destroyed and lost more of our own peoples' lives that were killed in the attack and aftermath.  And that is simply our own losses.  I wish someone would do a good cost benefit analysis on this and tell me how in the hell it was worth it.  And don't give me any of that crap about how much more secure we are now than then because it is simply crap and not a valid 'gain.'

Talk about a whole boat load of honest--try this one from Crooks & Liars.  I loved the concluding remarks the trader made in his interview with Forbes cited in the post.  He thought what he said was old news and everyone knew the truth of the situation.  Yeah, we do--really we do.  But too many of us just want to pretend that it "isn't so, Joe."  Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has this to say on the matter.
Her last comment sent a bit of a chill up my spine.  Saying that Rastani presents a 'bland, reasonable face on predatory capitalism' reminded me of Hannah Arendt's description of Eichmann as the personification of the 'banality of evil.'

Good Monday morning to you all.  Yesterday was gloomy and wet.  Today is more of the same.  I didn't get anything done in the containers and won't unless we get some drying.  The forecast is for this same pattern into Wednesday.  Oh, well.  Didn't have much to say about what I found on-line.

I loved the scene in Elizabeth where Elizabeth I tells her councilors that she didn't "like wars.  Their outcomes are so uncertain."  She could have added that they are so expensive.  That is what we are finding out with the winding down of the Iraqi part of our so-badly-misnamed "Global War On Terror."  Take a look at this Huffington Post article to see what we are leaving behind--mostly because it will cost too much to ship it back to the U.S.

Good Morning America had a segment that just raised my blood pressure.  The reporter talked about the chaotic Repthuglican situation (with Herman Cain winning the straw poll) and Obama referring to the same in remarks at a campaign speech.  He cited the governor of a state on fire who denies climate change (Perry, in case you need a score card), one audience enthusiastically cheering the notion of someone being allowed to die for lack of health insurance, and another booing a gay soldier in Afghanistan for asking one of the candidates to clarify his stand on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  What irritated me was the comment from the reporter that he had to note that 'only a few' members of the audience cheered or booed.  ONLY A FEW!!!  How about noting that no one, on the podium or in the audience, took those few to task.  There is an old saying that fits the bill here--silence gives approval.  I can only conclude that the rest of the audience approved of the sentiments, the candidates approved, and that the mainstream media approves.

Good morning, All.  Cool and overcast today but they say the rain should be slight during the day.  If so I should be able to get the last of my peppers in.  I packaged up seven pint baggies of the Zavory peppers,  four of the Marconi and a quart and half of the bell.  I also cleaned the remains of the tomato stalks out of a couple of the beds.  I found that the cardboard oatmeal containers worked just the way I hoped--like a degradable pot.  I hoped to provide a protected space for the tomato plant roots while directing them deeper into the container.  That worked perfectly.  And I think the cardboard also helped by absorbing water and slowly releasing it.  Certainly a technique to continue using.

Joshua Keating posted this item on Foreign Policy.  I don't pay much attention to ads usually.  Just background noise.  It is interesting to see the dilapidated state of our infrastructure used to sell foreign cars.

Good morning to you all.  Again I had nothing much to say yesterday.  I think I am going to have to broaden my horizon a bit and find some new blogs.  My current list is heavy on politics and economics and I am very tired of the idiocy in both areas.  I must get off my ass and get some gardening done.  Burpees has shipped the blueberry plants and I need a space to put them.  I hope they do well here.  I may have to run out between the rain drops since occasional showers are forecast for today and the next couple.

As you can see, Lois, I agree with you on the issue of politics and the news.  The time spend bumming around was good for my soul.  With the gardening season winding down I will have to schedule more of those segments of me-time.

Rain, at Rainy Day Things, does a fine job again of expressing my frustrations and anger at what has become of this country.  I feel that I am slowly (or sometimes not so slowly) being written out of the American Citizenry.  If you don't make more that $100k a year somehow you are no longer a real American.  If you accepted the withdrawal of 4%+ (it has changed over time) of the money you make in return for a promise of a pittance from Social Security when you finally reach retirement age (which has also increased over time), you are a goddamn fool and parasite not a true American.  I could go on but I don't want to raise my blood pressure.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has some very discerning comments on the Georgia Works program that President Obama has touted as part of his program to get people working again.  I have never cared much for the notion of unpaid or poorly paid internships.  They have always been touted as a route to employment for people wanting to get a foot in the door.  Evidently the statistics aren't as promising as the President thinks.  Also the amount he wants to give in 'incentives' for the states and companies participating makes each job a rather expensive and the workers gets very little of it.  The claim by some supporters that the program would keep workers 'tethered' to the job market who might otherwise drop out.  Serfdom did that nicely once upon a very barbaric time.