Cloudy today with rain probable.  But the temps will be cooler.  I can't complain (much) about heat considering what the southwest is getting.  I just hope it doesn't move in here.  The gardens are doing well now and I would like them to continue.  I was surprised to see my hibiscus drooping a bit yesterday given all the rain we had over the past week but it had sucked most of the moisture out of its pot.  I watered it well and it has perked back up.

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That was Saturday.  It is now Sunday and we have broken clouds with the promise of at least some sun.  I don't think we got much rain yesterday so I will have to see what the plants need a bit later.  I saw a couple of actual cherry tomatoes forming on one of the plants.  The others should be following suit soon.  I think I was a couple of squash forming also.  Let's see if there is anything forming on the 'net.

What does it say about a legislative body when the bar for success is "keeping bad things from happening?"  Unfortunately, too keep the "bad things" from happening no good things get done either. That is not success.  And we are paying those bozos for doing nothing.  I think we should save the money and fire them all.

So our supposed allies are pissed over U.S. cyberspying on their officials and agents.  I am fascinated by how little outrage (domestic or foreign) appears in our (s)news media.  Even the game of "Where is Edward Snowden" has largely disappeared from the airwaves.  Once upon a time we were told that democracy required an informed and educated electorate and that the news media was key to educating that informing the electorate on public matters while public schools provided the education.  Both key institutions have failed us.

There are a couple of unfortunate aspects to this story.  First, if you want to take the high ground (that is, make an argument from a position of moral superiority, as we so often try to do in our international dealings) we should not be doing things that allow all the Mr. (or Ms.) Pots out there noticing how grimy our own bottom is.  Second, the 4th Amendment doesn't mean all that much for the privacy rights of Americans, at home or abroad.  Third, the argument "everybody does it" is truly juvenile.  That it works for our political leaders when all it got me was a swat on the bottom is so wrong.

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."

Good Thursday, Everyone.  Foggy this morning--though it is dissipating now.  We may get more thunderstorms later this afternoon.  Hope not.  I am so ready for a dry spell which might come over the weekend.  Everything survived in the garden but it was ugly.  The rain and wind laid down six of my peppers.  They now have support stakes.  One, and only one, of the large containers failed to drain properly and had about three inches of water on top of the soil which settled and compacted badly.  I punched more drain holes so it eventually drained.  Why that one container and not a single one of the others didn't drain I have no idea.  I checked everything a bit ago.  I think I see buds on the cypress vine and am still waiting for the hibiscus to open.

So this labor dispute has been settled and the hostage boss is now free.  I saw an interesting interview on the standoff on CNBC, I think.  Evidently the interviewee reads Chinese and said that the accounts in the Chinese press gives a different picture.  Notice how the linked story mentions that the workers demanded severance pay even though they still had jobs and the company assured them the plant wasn't fully closing.  Evidently, according to the account from the CNBC interview, the workers saw an entire division of the plant close and the jobs shipped to India.  The workers in that division got severance pay.  But they also saw the machinery in other areas of the plant boxed up which caused serious concern among the rest of the employees for their jobs.  Should they believe their eyes--or what the company tells them?  How much do you trust your employer to be honest with you?

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism posted a link to this article.  We look very skeptically on all medical therapy.  There are always side effects or possible negative consequences to all medical interventions.  Treating depression (not curing--treating) at the risk of diabetes, however low, doesn't sound all that appealing to me.

I didn't read all of this article but it presents a new study which contradicts a key argument Monsanto, et al., present in favor of their GMO seeds--increased yield.  Recent studies have contradicted the biotech companies' arguments that their seeds require fewer applications of herbicides and pesticides.  As the weeds become Roundup resistant and the insect pests become bt resistant, that is less true (if it ever was true).

Gene Logsdon posted this on the Contrary Farmer yesterday.  I have seen stories about the efforts of Chinese governments (local and national) to "encourage" rural folk to move into high rise apartments in cities.  I have also seen stories about "ghost" cities being built in areas where the infrastructure (power, water, sewage) simply can't sustain the planned population.  Or cities already built but where people are most definitely not beating down the realtor's door.  The sentiment of that official is rather telling: if they can induce half of the Chinese people to start consuming the economy will take off but they are living in rural areas where they don't consume.  Once upon a time everywhere, people lived in a "household economy" where most of the family's needs were produced in the household and consumed there.  Only surpluses were sold outside the family.  Notice the attitude that the people who produce their own "don't consume."  Well, they do consume--they just don't exchange money for the items they consume but are produced elsewhere.  I have noticed that modern economics ignores the household except as a locus of consumption of goods and services produced outside the household.  The twenty-two pounds of stewed tomatoes I got out of my gardens last year only added to the general economy when I bought the seeds last spring.  I can imagine that economists might actually view my gardening as a drag on the economy. After all, because I grew my own I didn't buy about $35 worth of canned stewed tomatoes.  I think the economists are screwy.

I never knew a sports injury at a military prep school could be a "service related" injury that would qualify a business owned by the "injured" party as a "service-disabled veteran-owned small business."  Neither did Tammy Duckworth who does have service related disabilities.  Thank you, Tammy, for calling the asshole on his scam.  His actions may not have been illegal but it certainly was unethical.

Good wet Wednesday, All.  We did get some rain last night and expect more over the day today.  Thankfully, the wind is not nearly as brutal as it was Monday and the rain wasn't falling like millions of miniature hammers.  But I don't think I will be doing any gardening done until later in the week when we are supposed to dry out.

Oh, my!!  Pity the ultra-rich.  The prices for luxury living have risen faster than inflation.  That is if you believe the inflation numbers.  I don't.  And I will save my sympathy for those who find unacknowledged inflation is making it hard for them to pay for food, shelter, and medicine.  Golf club dues and private boxes at the opera simply don't even register in my world.

Grist posted this.  We stopped using body washes a while back because all of those we checked had triclosan in them.  In case you missed it, the antimicrobial chemical is also can cause cancer.  We went back to bar soap.

Good Tuesday, Everyone.  Oh, what a storm we had yesterday evening.  The weather people had warned that the line of thunderstorms was coming in "at highway speed."  And it did.  The wind drove the rain sideways--and I do mean sideways.  It looked like some of the pictures we get from hurricane coverage.  Usually, our fence protects the patio from winds.  But I cringed as I watched it whip my strawberries on the fence and the tansy which is, for now, the tallest plant in the gardens.  The lower level plants were also pummeled.  I checked everything this morning.  The borage was badly beaten down but it may come back, and the chocolate mint and lemon basil were a bit bedraggled.  Otherwise I have a couple of plants that need a bit of support. The forecast for today calls for more thunderstorms this afternoon.

Our news showed this story last night but left everything as a mystery--no possible explanations given.

Hi, Kay.  I wish I could say I paid all my student loans back.  Unfortunately all of the jobs I had before (reluctantly) retiring paid much less than the payments would have been--or I was unemployed.  I consider my last stint in academe the worst "investment" I ever made.  The only reason austerity hasn't hit us harder is pure, dumb luck.  Mom has good health insurance thanks to her late husband (although that is getting more expensive) and I have no long term health problems.  Our combined social security is just enough--if those bastards in Washington don't muck it up.  I don't mind the idea of Taco Bell or McDonalds or any of the fast food places.  I just don't really want to eat there.  What we cook up here at home tastes so much better.  Mom is much more finicky, especially about anything resembling Mexican or TexMex.  Me?  Not so much.  I figure, if you aren't expecting authentic Mexican, you won't be disappointed.

We paid a visit to our little farm market this morning.  We got some nice red tomatoes and green tomatoes, and some lettuce.  Had a nice conversation with the vender who remarked on the egg cartons Mom carried.  We were taking them to another vender who re-uses them for the eggs he brings to the market.  The eggs we get are from a farm that keeps its hens cage free and doesn't use antibiotics.  The man we talked to has been involved in "organic" production of eggs and veggies since before we had a word for it.  He remembered when, only fourteen years ago, he couldn't sell eggs from his free range hens at any price as the customers rejected "that organic shit."  Now they ask how long he has engaged in organic agriculture.  All his life, he says.  His mother and grandmother were Cherokee/Cheyenne and used what we now call organic practices.  He asked his mother once why she didn't use modern methods and chemicals.  She told him "If the Sky Father didn't make it, don't put it in Mother Earth."  She asked him if he thought they took the toxic chemicals and shot them to the moon.  He said, "of course not."  "So where are they?" she asked.  "You are walking on it and eating it.  Some day it will kill you."  We are Blackfoot/Shawnee (plus Scots, Irish, English, French, and Dutch) and we thoroughly agree.

Good Monday to you all.  Cool right now but we expect temps near 90 with possible thunderstorms--if the systems hold together long enough.  Some of my herbs need cutting so that is on the agenda.  I also want to get some the plots cultivated a bit and fertilized.  Sometime this week I want to get some strawberry plants split and replanted.  Peppers, hibiscus, tomatoes, and squash are budding.  I expect blossoms any time.

Well, I did get lemon thyme, sage, pineapple sage, bee balm cut and drying.  Also got everything fertilized and cultivated.  Surprise--my lemon squash are blooming.  I didn't think they were quiet ready.

Glad you enjoyed the links, Kay.  Lets see what I find today.

I found this shortly after I started traipsing through the 'net.  I have spent a much too large a part of my adult life in institutions of higher learning.  I have watched as the schools increased their fees to the point where a student who, like me, could once fund their programs with part time work during the school term and full time work during the summer could no longer work enough hours at any time to afford the tuition/fees/rent/books etc.  I have seen the schools reduce the number of grants and scholarships while steering their students into loans from which they often got a kickback from lending institutions.  What we have to remember is that colleges and universities (non-profit or for-profit, private or public) have become big businesses and the bottom line is the only consideration any more.  But we now have to judge education by the same standards we judge any other consumer good: its utility for us and our lives.  I remember being very disgusted by former Secretary of Education William Bennett who advised people to "kick the tires" on education.  Unfortunately, education has become a commodity on par with cars, refrigerators, computers.  We have to decide, as consumers, what we want "education" to  do for us, will it have the desired results, and is it worth mortgaging our futures of it.

Why anyone really thinks "austerity" is a good idea, maybe this story from U.K. will give them pause.  Let's call a spade a spade here.  Austerity really means pain for people who are already hurting while those who really cause the recession get off and prosper.

I find linguistic legerdemain fascinating.  In answer to the last question, I have a friend who referred to the chain as "Taco Hell."

I can definitely relate to these sentiments.  My past seems so distant and gets more distant every day.

Good Sunday, everyone.  We finally got some sun yesterday and temperatures in the high 80s.  Same expected today with a possible 90+.  Needless to say we are staying inside and not doing very much.  I will check everything this morning and will water tonight if we don't get rain over the day.

This is an interesting little lesson in American political history and speculation on the future.  That some in the more conservative camp would think it a good idea to resurrect property qualifications to protect their own power and influence doesn't surprise.  The devil is, of course, in the details.  For instance, how does one define "property?"  Originally, property qualifications often specified property that generated a given level of income each year.  It might be a farm, a workshop, a store, warehouse or ship, etc.  Key here is it generated income.  The left out a large number of professionals whose activities brought in income but whose property (a house they lived in, for example) didn't.  Or it left out a rising population of skilled workers whose labor earned a tidy income but who often didn't own any property income generating or otherwise.  And how much of the nearly 81 or so percent of actually own property?  And even if you decide to use property value as opposed to income from property what property how what kind of property would you include/exclude?  Interesting can of worms.