Hello Summer

It's just barely noon here and it has just hit 90F. Officially summer now. I worked in the garden some yesterday morning but by 1pm it was just too hot and even with by wide brimmed hat, which was soaked, I couldn't keep the sweat out of my eyes or off my glasses so I just gave up and shifted to the cool basement and worked on daughter's screen door. Some final adjustments to the tongue I cut on the door bottom and a little more gluing and it will be finished. That's the plan for this afternoon.

Our visitors did the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca Cola yesterday and all that is left is Stone Mountain and the Laser show tonight and the zoo tomorrow. Madam has them on the historic tour today of the local antebellum houses and all that.

The laser show doesn't start until dark which is 9:30pm so it will be a late night. We've got a picnic planned so we'll head down early and find a nice place on the lawn and try and keep cool few a few hours...at least by that time the sun will be low and not boiling down. It's really not a bad deal since the show is included in the 8$ per car park entry fee. It's just sort of a pain to drive all the way to Stone Mountain from way up here in the north and then battle the post show traffic and the late night drive home. I haven't seen the show in years and it is supposed to be 45 minutes of nonstop oohs and ahhs. We'll see.

BTW We had our first green beans and squash from the garden last night and it was worth all the work. No tomatoes yet but they are close...2 weeks tops. I also had fresh picked blueberries with my yogurt this morning...only a couple of dozen have ripened so far but there will be a couple of quarts before all is done. The bird netting has worked so far!

Health Care Reform on Life Support

The potential for meaningful reform is in intensive care:

A Senate source just passed me the latest outline of the Senate Finance Committee's health reform proposal. This is the post-CBO revision. Apparently, after the committee staff received the scores, they dug deep and quickly developed this proposal to circulate among members and then send back to CBO. It was presented to earlier today at a closed-door meeting.

Sources say that it's a major scale-back of the outline they had before. Specifically, subsidies have dropped from 400 percent of the poverty line to 300 percent. Medicaid eligibility has been tightened to 133 percent of poverty for children and pregnant women and 100 percent of poverty for parents and childless adults. The plans being offered in the exchange have seen their actuarial values sharply lowered.

Beyond the changes, this is also the clearest look we've had at the specific policies being considered. There's a fairly strong individual mandate, albeit with exemptions for those beneath the poverty line, those who would have to spend more than 15 percent of income for a plan, and undocumented workers. There are a variety of options for an employer mandate, or the absence of one. Sen. Kent Conrad's co-op idea is up for discussion. There's no public plan mentioned anywhere in the document.

In so many words this is just what the health insurance industry wanted. Mandated insurance enforced by the government which forces people to buy your product with no real competition from anybody but your criminal cohorts in the industry. We are so screwed.

Digby has the details on industry executive compensation if you don't mind getting really, really angry.

The Problem with Health Care Reform

Scarecrow says it best at Firedoglake. And also here. Not good news!

Who could have predicted that if you set out to reform America's health care system, but accepted the constraint that you have to preserve its most flawed features -- like the private insurance system that leaves millions uncovered, costs way too much and provides lower quality care than other nations without those features -- that every one of the leading "reform" proposals in Congress would wind up leaving millions of people uncovered, cost way too much, and likely not improve the overall quality of care in America?

Well, our WH and Congress never saw that coming. Which leads TNR's Jonathan Cohn to say it's time to worry that we can't pull this off. No kidding.

Mountains Today

Our guests have expressed a desire to make a run to the mountains today so that is where we are headed. Take in Dahlonega and all the gold rush stuff and then to Cleveland and Baby Land General (arrgh!). If we have time we will stop in at Clarksville and the Mark of the Potter and then on the daughters house in Gainesville for dinner. Supposed to hit the mid 90's today but maybe the mountains will spot us a few degrees.

See you guys a bit later.

No Real Change in Health Care

The more I watch the back and forth on the health care debate the more it dawns on me that we are probably not going to get something meaningful. The real debate has shifted from single payer and universal coverage to government sponsored health insurance to compete with the current insurance scam. An alternative to the expensive health insurance options at lower cost will surely benefit a lot of people. Those of us currently and likely to be unemployed for the foreseeable future are still going to be left with nothing. We won't even be able to afford a cheap insurance option.

The more and more I read the more and more I realize that we won't have a single payer health system in this country during my lifetime...the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are just too powerful and have too many politicians in their pockets. Of course, the politicians have their government run health plan so the rest of us can't just do the best we can.

Can't Win

The recoil spring on the Honda mower broke yesterday and therefore you couldn't get the rope to retract and hence no starting. I took it apart and went this morning to get a new spring for the mechanism. I figured $5 at the most. To my surprise you have to buy the whole mechanism and you can't buy just a replacement spring. So I am out $16. What a waste and just because they know they have you over a barrel. So no matter how handy you are you just have to take what's offered. I understand the concept of FRU's (field replaceable units) but this is a little overboard.

Now I am off to Lowe's to get a screen for the daughter. Her opening is 36x84 and they only make stock screen doors 80 inches tall. She has called on Pop to add three inches to a stock door. Not a big problem...just rout a tongue on the existing door and a groove in a 4 inch board...a little glue and some trimming.

Saturday Stuff

Same old thing going on here at Monk Manor. The garden and the continuous maintenance required. I mentioned that I had harvested garlic so the area where it was growing is now planted with Mountain Half Runner beans and Christmas Limas. Both of those require support so I spent the day building same. The bamboo I saved from the dumpster a few months back is coming in real handy.

I've got pictures to post but I am too sleepy to do it tonight.

Son in law went fishing this morning in the North Georgia mountains and as a result I was gifted with two twelve inch rainbow trout. Salt, pepper and a good dose of EVOO and a visit to a hot grill produced a wonderful dinner. Snow peas from the garden and a little whole wheat couscous rounded out the meal. It was very nice. Yes, I know the couscous wasn't local but I didn't have the time to make my own though I have and will again.

I think my experience with the baguettes and the technique with a very wet dough and long, long fermentation has given me the clues necessary to make a pure whole wheat sourdough bread. Years ago I tried and failed to produce a very memorable bread...edible but not memorable. I started the first phase tonight and we shall see. My goal is to produce a loaf of bread as light and flavorful as the whole wheat bread the monks at Tassajara did. That bread and the loaf from Poilane in Paris are my two ideals when it comes to bread. I can get in the ballpark on the Poilane loaf but I will never come close. No hard wood fired oven burning French oak and no basement bakery with seveal hundred years of yeast spore floating in the air. We won't even mention the French flours. I do have the recipe from Tassajara for the daily loaf but I am missing something. Maybe a few hundred more loaves will be the answer. Then again it could be the question. The object is to make a bread with all whole wheat flour and not cheating by adding gluten or regular all purpose or bread flour. My results have always been tasty but a little dense and not great structure. I don't expect a bread like the regular bread I make each week but I want it to rise and keep its shape. I'll settle for a loaf just half the crumb of my regular bread.

Garlic and More Garlic

OK. I harvested all of the garlic yesterday and it is now curing in the basement. In order to get enough space to lay it all out with the tops still attached I had to put my 14ft extension ladder on saw horses. A couple of hundred plants I estimate. One downside is the odor. I am a big fan of garlic but curing that much garlic in your basement permeates the house with garlic...to the point of making your eyes water at times. Definitely need to rethink the curing part of the game. This is going to take about 3 weeks and hopefully the smell will diminish over time.

On the upside...I don't have to worry about vampires for the next couple of weeks...

Killing You Slowly

Full disclosure. I was born in West Virginia and still have a lot of relatives there. In spite of being called a "hillbilly" and a "ridge runner" and a few other choice names I am still proud of my "Mountain Mama" heritage.

However, I might have to rethink this whole "Take Me Home Country Roads" thing in light of the latest brilliance from the West Virginia DEP. This is really stupid but believe it or not, these folks have decided that it is OK for West Virginia waters to have higher levels of mercury in them than is recommended by the EPA because, get this... "West Virginians eat less fish than the average American".

The DEP's study shows that West Virginians consume less fish than the national average, and the agency is using the results to say mercury levels in West Virginia's waterways can be higher than the federal EPA recommends.

The Clean Water Act recommends that mercury not exceed 0.3 micrograms per gram of fish tissue.

West Virginia's standards are less stringent-0.5 micrograms per gram.

But that's okay, the DEP says, because a study conducted in November showed that West Virginians actually eat less fish than the national average.

Mike Arcuri is an environmental resources analyst with DEP's water quality standards program.

"The more fish people consume in a given area, the lower that number has to be in order to keep the public safe, if that makes any sense," he said. "And then if people are consuming lower numbers of fish, that number in the fish tissue can be a little bit higher because they're not taking as much in."

I don't want to even think where this kind of logic will take you. Just ignore the fact that mercury accumulates in the body.

Finally! A Win for Tradition

Over the years we have seen tradition after tradition fall to the false gods of profit and efficiency. While it is not much, the European Union has reversed itself on allowing blends of red and white wines to be labeled rosé. Rosé traditionally is made as wine by itself by leaving the skins of the grapes with the juice for just a short time in order to give the wine its characteristic rose color. I don't drink a lot of rosé but it has its place and is an especially nice wine for summer with all the lighter dishes we normally prepare. Thank goodness the EU has seen the light and will preserve the traditional method. It may look like a rosé. There may be hope after all in Brussels.

The European Union, bowing to an outcry from traditional vintners, has reversed itself and decreed that the cut-rate technique of mixing red wine with white does not make an authentic rosé and thus cannot be used by Europe's winemakers.

The decision, announced Monday at the union's headquarters in Brussels, represented a victory for French winemakers who had risen up against plans by the E.U. agriculture commission to end its ban on mixing as a way to compete with down-market rosés concocted by producers in such countries as Australia and South Africa. More broadly, it was a rare retreat by the forces of globalization and profit margins in the face of resistance from traditional artisans.

"It's important that we listen to our producers when they are concerned about changes to the regulations," the union's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, said in a communique. "It's become clear over recent weeks that a majority in our wine sector believe that ending the ban on blending could undermine the image of traditional rosé."

h/t to Chris at AmericaBlog

Back to Normal

Our young visitors are off to Florida for a few days so it is back the routine around here. Lots to do and the morning cool is slipping away fast. The garlic is signaling that it is time to be harvested so that looks like the big chore for the day. Still not sure what I am going to do with all of it. It needs to hang and dry out of the weather for a week or two but I am not sure where that will be. I need a barn.

The first summer squash made its appearance overnight. It is about two inches long but it will be ready in just a few days. Once they start it is continuous and the zucchini will not be far behind.

More Shopping

Madam has to work today so I have shopping duty today and we are to do a mall crawl. Not my favorite pastime as I am not a good shopper. I get in and get out. Hopefully we will find all the required items in short order. Evidently the prices here are much better than in the UK especially for things like upscale clothes (Abercrombie and Fitch, etc.).

Most of my gardening is caught up so I can afford to be the good host. Our quests are off on their own to Florida tomorrow for a few days so it will be the normal routine tomorrow and for a few days before we have to get back to touristing.

Being the Good Host

We got our young couple from the UK all settled in last night and they are off shopping with Madam today. As usual I am preparing dinner. Tonight we are going Southern. I've got some pork spare ribs smoking out back right now (got a great deal at Whole Foods yesterday as they were only $2.99 a pound!). I got an even better deal today at the market when the fresh corn was only 25 cents an ear and it looks pretty nice. It's from Florida, of course, so it isn't actually local...but close. It will be grilled in the husk and will be a nice complement to the ribs.

I broke down and bought a pineapple from Puerto Rico to throw on the grill as well. Again, not local but we don't grow much pineapple in Georgia. A nice salad from the garden and some homemade bread and we are good.

That's a LOT of Money

Blue Texan at FDL has some absolutely disgusting numbers for us to peruse...

Of all the wasted money spent on the defense around the world last year we Americans accounted for a whopping 42% of the total tab. In spite of that horrible fact we still hear

endless concern trolling about how Obama's destroying the military.

The U.S. is, as expected, by far the world's biggest arms spender, according to the think tank. It represented almost 42% of the 2008 total, more than the 14 other top countries combined in what SIPRI described as a legacy from former presidentGeorge W. Bush.

Since 1999, U.S. defense spending has soared 67% in real terms to $607 billion last year.

As a comparison, the non-tax cut portion of the Porkulus Generational Theft Stimulus Bill that so outraged the Teabaggers was a mere $499B. And yet, for some of those very same Teabaggers, $607 billion just isn't cutting it.

"Reducing Alaska's defense readiness in these perilous times is a show of weakness, it is not a sign of strength," Palin said during a celebration in upstate New York honoring native son William Seward, who negotiated the purchase of Alaska in 1867 as Secretary of State.

In light of the fact that the US only spent more than four times what Russia and China committed to defense -- combined -- it's easy to see why Palin's so concerned.

Is it just me or does anyone else think that maybe we ought to rethink this whole military thing or at least move the spending into the ballpark with the rest of the world. I understand the need for a strong military given our position in the world but really!

Baguette Redux

I got a little grief from commenter Gasho for not posting a picture of my own baguettes. I made another batch today and here are the results.

I just checked on our inbound guests and their flight is now in the air but was 30 minutes late leaving Heathrow(not unusual). That is going to put them in here at sometime after 7 pm and by the time they make it through the hassles at immigration and customs then catch the train to the Northern burbs it will easily be 930 pm before we can pick them up at the North Springs station. I was planning to have a light supper of roast chicken with salad and fresh bread but I might have to rethink it. They may be to "cream crackered" to do anything but hit the sack. Both are young though and they may surprise us. We shall see. I may still roast the chicken and just plan on a cold supper.

As always if you want to see a bigger pic just click on it.

David Carradine RIP

CNN and others are reporting that David Carradine has been found dead in his Bangkok hotel room. Unconfirmed reports are that it was a suicide.

This is very strange news for me. In the early seventies David's character on the TV series "Kung Fu" had a pretty profound effect on my spirit and somehow the thought of suicide doesn't connect. I know was well as the next person that David Carradine was not Kwai Chang Caine just like I know Leonard Nimoy was not Spock but somehow the mental connection with the actor and character just presents some irreconncilable issues. I think I will just remember the David Carradine who made an impression on a struggling psyche and not the David Carradine who was so troubled that he considered taking his own life.

Peace be with you Grasshopper.

Do You Need More Evidence?

A new report by Harvard University and Ohio University underlines the fact, that most of us already know, that the U.S. health care system is fundamentally broken. Sixty two percent of all bankruptcies are attributable to illness in the family and even a more telling figure is that of those, 78% did have medical insurance! Anyone who questions the need for radical reform of the health insurance industry or the need for a national single payer system is an idiot. What's even worse is that that is a 50% increase from just 8 years ago!

Medical bills or illness contributed to more than 62 percent of personal bankruptcies in 2007, a new study says, showing a nearly 50 percent increase from 2001 and not even reflecting the growing number of people who are losing their jobs and insurance in the recession.

The national study by researchers at Harvard University and Ohio University follows their five-state 2005 study that found medical problems contributed to at least 46.2 percent of bankruptcies in 2001. When identical definitions are applied, the share of bankruptcies involving medical issues has risen 49.6 percent since then.

“The U.S. health care financing system is broken, and not only for the poor and uninsured,” said the new report, which will appear in the August issue of the American Journal of Medicine and online today. “Middle class families frequently collapse under the strain of a health care system that treats physical wounds, but often inflicts fiscal ones.”

Medical bankruptcies will total an estimated 866,000 this year and involve 2.3 million Americans, based on the current bankruptcy filing rate, the report says.

[...] “Private health insurance is a defective product, akin to an umbrella that melts in the rain,” said lead author Dr. David Himmelstein, associate professor of medicine at Harvard. “Unless you’re Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy.”

How Long Will It Take?

President Obama's speech in Cairo is getting rave reviews both from the Muslim world and from sane people in the West. From MJ Rosenburg at TPM we have a summary of the eight major themes of the speech. I am just wondering how long it is going to take before the leaders of the wingbut brigade take exception to all or part of the message because in the speech Obama makes a direct hit on some of the unhinged right's most beloved untruths especially with respect to the place Islam has in our country. The president made a special point of equating the fundamental truths of the Bible, Talmud and Koran which is sure to horrify the nutso crowd of "christians" who think they are the only true religion and that everyone else is going to fry in hell. It will be interesting to see what really flames the whackos off the most and who their annointed spokesperson or persons will be. I'm sure we'll here a "rebuttal" today sometime.

The President conveyed eight distinct messages.

1) It's a new day. Not only is Barack Obama not Bush, he isn't any of the other 43 Presidents either. And he explained exactly how different he is. America is a great country, not least because it elected a half-Muslim, half-African. We are not who you may think we are. We are still America.

2)Islam is part of the American fabric and always has been.He knows Islam and honors it, like the other great faiths -- but with his special connection. We oppose the violent extremism of a segment of Islam but understand that the vast majority of Muslims reject that path.

3)9/11 was a crime against America and humanity. We are at war with its perpetrators -- Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Iraq was a "war of choice" and we are getting out as soon as we can.

4)We oppose violent extremism by anyone.

5)We are committed to Israel and to Palestine. Both peoples have a right to a safe secure state. Palestinian terror must stop. So must settlements. He will work to end this conflict. The language here was utterly evenhanded and emotional. He cares deeply about this issue. And, although he intends to push Israel hard on settlements, etc, he understands and shares the feeling Jews have about the country created in response to the slaughter of six million Jews. He will not do anything that endangers Israel's real security but, at the same time, "America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own."

6)We will keep talking to Iran about a resolution of the nuclear issue. It is entitled to have peaceful nuclear power. His goal is to prevent a nuclear arms race in the region.

7)Freedom of expression, democracy, and full rights for women are essential in the Muslim and Arab world just as in the west.

8)We intend to work with Muslims to remake the world. They are not our enemies.

Conclusion:

"It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.

Lard is Back

It seems as if you wait long enough everything seems to fix itself. I don't know for how many years we have have been told that lard is poison. Yeah, the stuff you find in grocery stores nowadays is mostly hydrogenated for shelf life but real lard is finally making a comeback. I've said for years, and proven on more than one occasion, that you can't make a decent buttermilk biscuit without lard and any good Mexican cook will prove the same about any number of classic Mexican dishes.

We were forced to take lard out of our kitchen arsenal and replace it with Crisco. Tales of cardiac woe and other horror stories did their job but what we got has turned out to be worse for us than the lard that was replaced.

Michael Pollan has it right. Go for the minimally processes food and if it was OK for your Granny it is OK for you. Now if I could just find some real lard but failing that I know how to make it.

Summer's Here

June first brought summer with it. Hit 90 at my house yesterday and I relented and turned on the air conditioner in the afternoon but not until it got near 90 in the house. All of the additional insulation I put in the attic last fall slowed the climb to uncomfortable until about 4pm and the new A/C quickly brought the temp back down to 80. It didn't help that I was baking bread and had the oven rocking at 450 for about an hour. I might have been able to resist turning on the cool if I hadn't heated the kitchen with the oven. We'll see today what happens as we are expecting a repeat and I won't be doing any baking today. Rain and cooler temps are due for the last of the week so maybe the A/C can go back to standby. Once you turn on the A/C for the summer it makes it really hard to get outside and get your work done.

I had to quit my gardening chores early as well. The heat wasn't that bad but for some reason the flies were murder and I just gave up.

Some good/bad news on the missing Air France plane this morning. They believe they have the wreckage spotted but from what I can tell from the rather sparse reports the two areas of suspected wreckage are some 60 miles apart. If that is the case then it appears the plane broke up at a fairly high altitude. It was last reported at 31 thousand feet. If, in fact, the weather caused a catastrophic failure of systems and eventual destruction then it must have been quite a storm. Those aircraft can take quite a bit of rough air without trouble.

On a more positive note, I have been finding quite a few new ways to use all the peas from the garden. The English peas, snow peas and mange tout (sugar snaps) are all ripening at the same time. Yesterday I cleaned out one of my raised beds where I put all of the extra onion plants in the spring. They were crowded and stayed very small but were perfect in a saute with the sugar snaps. Regardless, there are only so many days you can eat peas in a row so it looks like some blanching and freezing are in order.

Other than the garden it is pretty quiet here at Monk Manor and before it gets too much hotter I am off for a few more garden chores. Nothing heavy today though...tie up a few tomato plants and pull a few weeds. We have the son of some of our English friends and his new bride coming in this weekend and I need to make sure the garden is pristine. This is the couple who's wedding we attended last spring in the U.K. and this is Charlotte's first trip to the colonies. We'll show them around Atlanta and North Georgia and they have a short side trip to Florida planned as well. She'll at least get a taste of the South.

Monday Morning Stuff

A nice weekend here in Atlanta but it was a pretty sour weekend for news. The murder of Dr. Tiller was a serious tragedy and to make it worse the radical right to lifers are saying it wasn't murder but justifiable homicide. Sick, sick people. They are terrorists no different than Osama and should be treated as such.

An Air France A330-200 is missing over the Atlantic. Flight 447 enroute to Paris from Rio disappeared from radar last night. A search is underway. Automated systems on the aircraft radioed information about equipment failure and the pilot reported electrical problems after the plane hit turbulence on it's initial outbound climb out of Rio. Like all of the Airbus places the A330-200 is a "fly-by-wire" aircraft and a catastrophic electrical problem can make the plane virtually impossible to fly. The plane and the GE engines have a spotless safety record. Let's hope for the best but it doesn't look promising.

GM is filing for bankruptcy as I write...it's something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. Let's hope the bet that Obama is making...that a stronger company can emerge...is a good one.

Raining Weed Seeds

Right now the sun is out here in the Northern Atlanta burbs but the forecast is for another day of scattered showers and thunderstorms. Last night, as has been the case for what seems like weeks, we had another 'frog strangler'. It came down so hard and fast that it washed a lot of the wood chip mulch from between the garden rows. You can see the path of the torrent through the garden as the flood made it's way down the very gentle slope. I have some redistribution of chips in my immediate future.

All of the rain has generated another gangbuster crop of weeds. Sometime I think it must rain the seeds. Mostly morning glory and milkweed with a dash of Queen Anne's lace thrown in for good measure. In spite of all the mulching and weeding this past weekend I now have a fresh crop that needs attention. It is, needless to say, not my favorite part of gardening.

On the 'spiritual side' however, all the time in quiet activities in the garden with no distractions and the near mindless activity of weeding has moved what I call my 'consciousness dial' a good way higher. Quiet contemplation has a way of moving your consciousness more toward the harmony side of the dial. Pretty much everything else in today's world, news, TV and all the rest strives hard to de-sensitize you to the universe and your vibrations don't resonate like they should. In spite of what you read and hear, gurus, teachers, masters or whatever are really a hindrance in a person's spiritual evolution. They are more than likely, and usually are, a distraction. One's movement toward harmony and resonance with the universe is and should be a strictly personal thing. Occasionally, a teacher may provide a useful hint or remind you of the proper path like a sign post along the road but the actual journey is something you have to do by yourself. Time alone in the garden is an excellent way to negate the dehumanizing effects of the modern world and allow yourself a little spiritual expansion. I recommend it highly. Not only do you get a kick in the ass toward a little spiritual growth you get the benefit of fresh fruit and vegetables. You cannot find a better spiritual master than a little dirt under the fingernails and the hot sun on your shoulders.

The picture is 'Moon of Enlightenment' by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and is a good illustration of my point about spiritual masters above. Don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon as the moon.

Insanity Rules

If you look around the web or use a reader like I do you will note that some 80% of the current traffic is about President Obama's nomination to the Supreme Court of Sonia Sotomayor. The wingnut churn in non-information is hard to believe. People are discussing her food preferences, her heritage and I am sure her shoe size in trying to disqualify her as a legitimate candidate for the Supreme Court.

Let me make this simple for everyone.

If Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich don't like her then she is obviously the perfect choice. You can read all her past opinions from the 2nd Circuit and study how many have been overturned by the Supreme Court(not many) and you can worry that she is Puerto Rican and that Puerto Ricans have only been citizens of the U.S. since 1917. You can even worry about the fact that she is 'emapathetic'. Don't waste your time... Rush and Newt not liking the pick is all you have to know. She's perfect.

Give Peas a Chance

Tonight we have the first of the English peas for dinner. Here is a picture of today's harvest all shelled and ready for a bit of steam and a dash of butter. Mr. Duff will note that they are appropriately posed on the proper English tea towel...this one collected in the quaint town of Swaby in Lincolnshire where we have friends.

Other than picking and shelling the peas(with assist from Madam) and getting the weekly bread rising, I have been rather a slug today. I think I worked too hard over the weekend but the garden shows the effort. Only a few weeds. The weekend saw the main crop cantaloupe and fall pumpkins planted. The second planting of corn is up and so far, knock on wood, the improvised 'tents' of poultry wire seem to be defending against marauders. The main crop of Dixie butterpeas are also up and doing well. The first planting didn't do well and it must have been just too cool for them to germinate properly. Still overcast with intermittent showers and as much as I hesitate to say it we do need sun for a few days.

So I am off to peel a few potatoes for boiling. You must have potatoes with peas along with a garden salad with the last of the French breakfast radishes. It's getting too warm to plant more so that is the last until fall. Probably only a mess of two of peas are forthcoming as the warm weather shuts them down in a hurry but here in Georgia we can get a fall crop as well.

Garden Update

It's been a couple of weeks so things have grown. Here is the garden on Memorial Day. A little overcast with intermittent rain but the garden likes the moisture. They have declared our drought officially over.

Homegrown is Good

I get asked frequently why I spend so much time and effort on my vegetable garden. First, I enjoy the time playing in the dirt and watching things grow. Second, the taste, freshness and quality of homegrown food is amazing and will spoil you forever. Third, it's very economical. I can grow a huge amount of food for a very small outlay of actual cash. There is a lot of "sweat" invested true, but people spend a lot of money paying some gym for the same. Lastly, over and over research is showing that growing your own vegetables and fruit using natural and organic principles, especially if they are heirloom varieties, gives you a lot more nutritional 'bang for the buck' than the gracery store stuff, fresh or processed. The commercially grown vegetables, fruits and grains that we are eating today are significantly less nutritious than these foods were 100 years ago, or even just 30 years ago.

• In wheat and barley, protein concentrations declined by 30 to 50 percent between the years 1938 and 1990.
• Likewise, a study of 45 corn varieties developed from 1920 to 2001, grown side by side, found that the concentrations of protein, oil and three amino acids have all declined in the newer varieties.
• Six minerals have declined by 22 to 39 percent in 14 widely grown wheat varieties developed over the past 100 years.
• Official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data shows that the calcium content of broccoli averaged 12.9 milligrams per gram of dry weight in 1950, but only 4.4 mg/g dry weight in 2003.

All of this evidence has been assembled and rigorously reviewed by Dr. Donald R. Davis, a now (mostly) retired chemist from the University of Texas.

So what’s causing these declines? The evidence indicates there are at least two forces at work. The first is what agriculture researchers call the environmental “dilution effect.” Davis notes that researchers have known since the 1940s that yield increases produced by fertilization, irrigation and other environmental means used in industrial farming tend to decrease the concentrations of minerals in those plants. These techniques give growers higher yields, and consumers get less expensive food. But now it appears there’s a hidden long-term cost — lowered food quality.

For example, a study of phosphorous fertilizer on raspberries found that applying high levels of phosphorus caused the yield to double and concentrations of phosphorus to increase in the plants, but meanwhile levels of eight other minerals declined by 20 to 55 percent!

The other force at work is what Davis calls the genetic dilution effect — the decline in nutrient concentration that results when plant breeders develop high-yielding varieties without a primary focus on broad nutrient content. That’s what the studies of wheat, corn and broccoli confirm.

h/t Organic Consumers Association

Punk Squirrel?

It's bad enough that the squirrels and chipmunks are eating me out of house and home, digging up my vegetable beds, and planting large quantities of sunflower seeds in every pot on the deck and every flower bed but now I have to put up with punk wildlife!

Somehow this fellow got mixed up with some red paint and got it all over his tail and apparently nowhere else...can't imagine how that would happen. I caught him this morning stealing suet from the birds. A couple of years ago I noticed a squirrel with a beef bone around his neck and quite tightly. I did manage to catch him and turn him over to animal rescue who removed the bone and set him free somewhere in the wilds of Georgia. Another wildlife mystery.

Anyhow...thought it worthy of a post and pic.

When Did It Change?

While I was working in the garden today and pondering the ways of the world, it suddenly came to me to ask, when did it all change? What was the trigger or event? Can we point to a calendar and say then?

When did your banker become your enemy? He used to be your friend. If you had some money to save, he would keep it safe and actually give you a little interest. He would take your money and that of others and loan it to others on fair terms when he had checked and felt sure that they were good to pay it back. For that he charged a little interest and all in all made a decent living facilitating commerce in the community. No one resented his profit and actually appreciated the service he provided the community. He was one of the "pillars" of the town.

Now your bank is your enemy. They will take your savings but pay niggardly interest. They'll service your financial needs but it will come at a steep price with fees and surcharges for everything. It has become, somehow, an adversarial relationship. You resent your bank and you just know they merely tolerate you and spend a good part of their day figuring out how to screw you out of a little more of your money. They're evil.

We need to figure out when, where and why things changed and get back there. I am getting real tired of feeling like I have no choice but to put my money in the pockets of someone who, if they really don't hate me, just tolerate me as a necessary evil.

What Josh Said

As you may or may not know, Darth Cheney is going to rebut President Obama'a speech today about closing GITMO. Josh Marshall at TPM reminds us about who and what Cheney really is. We should all keep this in mind for reference as the mainstream media talking heads vainly attempt to put Cheney on an equal footing with Obama. You should read the entire post but I especially like the middle two paragraphs.

This is someone who not only organized and seemingly directed a policy of state-sponsored torture. He did it in large part to get people to admit to crankish conspiracy theories he got taken in by by a crew of think-tank jockeys in DC whose theories most even half way sensible people treated as punch lines of jokes. So it's Torquemada or 1984 but only after getting rescripted by Mel Brooks.

This is an extremely gullible man who has just come off being the driving ideological force in an administration that most people can already see produced more fiascos and titanic, self-inflicted goofs than possibly any in our entire history. By any standard the guy is a monumental failure -- and not one whose mistakes stem in some Lyndon Johnson fashion from tragic overreach, but just a fool who damaged his country through his own gullibility, paranoia and bad judgment. Whatever else you can say about the Cheney story it ain't Shakespearean.

Baguette Success, Finally

I promised to report on my success or failure with the new method of making a traditional baguette. I am glad to report that it was a brilliant success and as near to a proper French baguette as you are likely to find anywhere outside of France. You can find the method at Chews Wise the blog of Samuel Fromartz.

You should be forewarned that this is not your basic bread making and can be a little daunting for inexperienced bread makers. I've been baking bread of all types (including attempts at duplicating the classic French baguette) for for over 40 years and I found the recipe challenging. Most of the challenge comes from working with a very wet dough but there are links to videos in the recipe to help you out.

If you are inclined to give it a try I can highly recommend the result. If your first couple of attempts are less than stellar, keep trying as there is a lot of technique involved and it needs a little practice. If you don't already have a sourdough starter then here's a the method from Wild Yeast (a great baking blog). The instructions are what is important in the creation of a starter. I don't use the rye flour just plain all purpose(King Arthur) and bottled spring water or filtered water. My latest starter took 6 days so be patient.

The photo is from Samuel's posted recipe but my results were almost identical, thank you very much. I should tell you, that for a home baker, being able to produce a credible baguette in the U.S. with American flours is a thrilling accomplishment. I can't imagine how good the next batches will be as I gain more confidence in working with the wet dough.

So don't be afraid, all you have to lose is a dollar's worth of flour and a little spare time but the reward is well worth it.

Postive Move to Reign in Credit Card Companies

Well, yesterday Chris Dodd's credit card reform bill passed the Senate 90-5 . To tell you the truth I wasn't expecting it pass without some major buckling under to the credit card lobby and I surely didn't expect this wide of margin. It wasn't that long ago that the Republicans could have simply prevented a bill like this from coming to the floor thereby eliminating any need for them to put themselves in harm's way by having to vote against it. Now they have no choice and have to vote whether they like it or not. Credit card reform really is a hot button issue right now as more and more people are discovering that the credit card people are poisonous leeches and I guess the GOP sense of self-preservation reared it's head and they gave the bill a massive majority.

The large margin does beg the question over whether Dodd could have played a little harder and gotten a better bill. Hard to say? We've still got to get the House and Senate bills conferenced and if the Democrats are paying attention, maybe it will be the first legislation in history to actually be improved in conference.

You'll notice a lot of wailing and hair pulling from the credit card industry. Don't believe even a single word of it. If you will remember my post from a couple of weeks or so ago you will see that these warts on body of society are still going to be able to continue to suck the life force out of the economy with their unreasonable skim on every credit transaction. Don't believe the threats about punishing the people who manage their credits cards wisely either. If you think the credit card companies will win the game of making the "deadbeats" pay for the difference we'll get a chance to see how the " free market" really operates. People who have managed their credit wisely aren't stupid and if the credit card companies aren't carefull they will send these customers to alternate services. Yes, I know it is virtually impossible to travel(rent a car, book a hotel, etc.) or shop on the internet without a credit card if the existing credit card companies get to onerous in their quest for profits at any cost then someone will come up with an attractive alternative. It's the way the market works.

Health Care Battle Heats Up

While I am waiting to put my second batch of bread into the oven I thought I would step into the health care debate one more time. With a hat tip to Steve Bennen it is pretty obvious that the anti health care folks are following the Frank Luntz playbook in their campaign to undermine the Obama effort to level the playing field and make affordable health care a reality in America.

Now Blue Cross Blue Shield is trying to undermine health care reform efforts? Not a surpise!

One week after the nation's health insurance lobby pledged to President Obama to do what it can to constrain rising health costs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is putting the finishing touches on a public message campaign aimed at killing a key plank in Obama's reform platform.

As part of what it calls an "informational website," the company has hired an outside PR company to make a series of videos sounding the alarm about a government-sponsored health insurance option, known as the public plan. Obama has consistently maintained that a government-run plan, absent high-paid executives and the need for profits, could be a more affordable option for Americans who have trouble purchasing private insurance. The industry argues that creating a public insurance program will undermine the marketplace and eventually lead to a single-payer style system.

In three 30-second videos, the insurer paints a picture of a future system in which patients wait months for appointments and can't choose their own doctors, according to storyboards of the videos obtained by the Washington Post.

The Media Matters Action Network put together a very thorough take-down of the BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina's "desperate attempt to deceive," with plenty of details about the company's background, and why the company's anti-reform ads are wrong.

Just to remind everyone of the truth MoveOn.org has put together a list of the realities for you to keep in mind when you hear the spin coming from the GOP and insurance companies. Every time you hear some idiot spouting the propaganda and outright lies about President Obama's health insurance options you can use these 5 truths to rebut them.

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OBAMA'S PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION

1. Choice, choice, choice. If the public health insurance option passes, Americans will be able to choose between their current insurance and a high-quality, government-run plan similar to Medicare. If you like your current care, you can keep it. If you don't—or don't have any—you can get the public insurance plan.

2. It will be high-quality coverage with a choice of doctors. Government-run plans have a track record of innovating to improve quality, because they're not just focused on short-term profits. And if you choose the public plan, you'll still get to choose your doctor and hospital.

3. We'll all save a bunch of money. The public health insurance option won't have to spend money on things like CEO bonuses, shareholder dividends, or excessive advertising, so it'll cost a lot less. Plus, the private plans will have to lower their rates and provide better value to compete, so people who keep their current insurance will save, too.

4. It will always be there for you and your family. A for-profit insurer can close, move out of the area, or just kick you off their insurance rolls. The public health insurance option will always be available to provide you with the health security you need.

5. And it's a key part of universal health care. No longer will sick people or folks in rural communities, or low-income Americans be forced to go without coverage. The public health insurance plan will be available and accessible to everyone. And for those struggling to make ends meet, the premiums will be subsidized by the government.

This is going to be an ugly fight and there are buckets of money ready to be thrown at it by the insurance industry. Remember that they have been riding a gravy train for years and years and it just keeps getting better and better for them. They have everything to lose if we Americans have an affordable health care option. Our Congress critters have been living pretty high off the hog as well with all the cash the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries have been stuffing into their pockets over the years. If you've a mind you might even consider giving your Congress critters a call or drop them a note asking them which they care about more: the health and well being of ALL Americans or the money coming from the health insurance folks.

Try to Go Natural

Thanks to Cookie Jill we have one more reason to eschew prepared and packaged foods.

May 15, 2009 -- To the growing list of chemicals showing up in human blood, a new study adds compounds that make food wrappers grease-proof.

Called diPAPs, these chemicals are fairly new and scientists don't yet know if they are harmful to human health. But diPAPs break down into another worrisome chemical, called PFOA, which may be carcinogenic.

The food industry has been rushing stuff into the marketplace for years without proper testing and with little concern for our health and giant concerns for their bottoms lines. This is just one more reason, in a long line, to avoid packaged foods. This includes fresh foods that the store insists on packaging in bundles(so that you have to buy six instead of the two you need). The closer to natural the better is always a good rule.

New Emissions Standards

This is good news and yes it will raise the price of a new car. The best thing is that the new standards include tougher standards for each class size of vehicles, as well as a higher average across each company's fleet. The previous rules covered only the fleet average, which meant that companies could offset a giant SUV with some more fuel efficient models. You are still going to be able to buy a bigger car or truck but it will be more energy efficient. These new rules are estimated to be the equivalent of taking 177 million cars off the road. As the global economy recovers and the price of oil begins to climb again this will be a very good thing indeed.

"The Obama administration today plans to propose tough standards for tailpipe emissions from new automobiles, establishing the first nationwide regulation for greenhouse gases.

It will also raise fuel efficiency targets to 35.5 miles per gallon for new passenger vehicles and light trucks by 2016, four years earlier than required under the 2007 energy bill, sources close to the administration said. (...)

The deal has been under negotiation since the first days of the administration. It represents a compromise among the White House; the state of California; and the auto industry, which has long sought national mileage standards and has waged an expensive legal battle against the California waiver. The industry will get its national standard, but at the price of one that approximates California's targets. Industry officials said they would drop all related lawsuits."

Getting Cool

Rained all weekend pretty much here in the Northern Atlanta burbs so not much outside work done. Garden needed it though and everybody looks pretty happy today in the bright sun with their feet wet. Did turn very cool this morning and was 51 F at dawn which is very odd for this time of year. The little cool spell will slow down the tomatoes and peppers a bit.

Still waiting on my replacement corn seed from Seed Savers so I can replace all that the birds pulled up. Maybe today and all of my poultry wire row covers are in waiting. We'll seee if the birds can get my defenses again.

Got the good news on Friday when the heating and cooling folks came out for the spring check that the evaporator coil had a leak. Not good. The unit is about 10 years old so it still uses R22 as a refrigerant which is no longer allowed as it is a CFC. New refigerant means new compressor and condensing coils in addition to the evaporator. The boys are down installing a new system as we speak that uses the new R410 which is environmentally friendly. It is also a high efficiency system so it should save a little money on the A/C bill over the summer though I doubt it will save me the $5K it is costing. Ouch! the joys of home ownership.

Trying a new/old/traditional method for making a proper French baguette. A very difficult process since you are supposed to work the very wet dough without additional flour. Not something I am used to but I think I am getting the hang of it. The first step took me week since I didn't like the looks of my old sourdough starter and had to build a new one. Fortunately, spring is the best time to capture and nurture a wild yeast culture and I now have one bubbling away. Today was the official start of the baguette process of making the dough with starter and yeast doing the wet and very sticky short kneading and the three traditional foldings. The dough is now resting in the fridge for 18 hours and we will be able to bake tomorrow afternoon. I've made baguettes before in various different ways usually starting with my regular chef starter(reserved piece of dough from the previous bake). This is how I make my weekly bread and it produces a nice full flavored dough(it's a 2 day process as well). The traditional French method for the baguette is to start with sourdough chef plus fresh yeast and build a very wet dough(where you let the very wet dough take the place of so much kneading) and just fold it a couple of times to develop the gluten and then have a very slow rise to develop the flavor. We shall report on the success. I will be very pleased if I can get someting close to a proper French loaf. You can't find them in the bakeries around here for some reason. I also started the chef for my regular bread bake so one way or the other we'll have bread and possibly even too much.

Gitmo Pussies

Am I just a clueless rube? Can someone tell me what it is going to take to get the Democratic Congress to understand that their Republican opponents are completely fucked, morally and politically, and there is absolutely no fucking reason in the world that they need be appeased?

Gaze upon their latest creation and weep :

Washington -- A bill by Senate Democrats would fund the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but it would block the transfer of any of the detainees to the United States....

...Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) on Wednesday circulated an approximately $91.5-billion measure that includes $50 million to shutter the Guantanamo facility and move its prisoners -- with the proviso that they can't be sent to the United States. The Senate bill appears to favor paying foreign governments to accept the prisoners.

Did the Dems go out and hire stupid consultants and pay them $4000 an hour to come up with the stupidest idea they could come up with. If there is one thing the United States knows how to do, it is how to incarcerate people. Jeebus we've got two million people locked up in this country...we lead the civilized world in locking up. There isn't anybody we can't lock up. We've even got a town in Montana that is volunteering to take the Guantanamo detainees.

Does anyone really believe that the American people are really afraid of being slaughtered in their beds if Gitmo detainees wind up being imprisoned in the high security prisons here in the U.S.? What an insult to our intelligence! Sen. Inouye and the rest of the Democrats, who think the right thing to so is fawn before the wingnuts on this issue, Wake up! The opposition are among the most hated public figures in the country. You don't have to listen to them any more, and there is absolutely no reason in the world to appease them.

Let's close Gitmo, release the teenagers, and bring the hardcore here and try them. If the government has evidence then we put them in prison for a while. If it doesn't we send them home. We'll just pretend we haven't created life long enemies in the process.

Cherry Picking on Health Care

You are seeing more and more comment and misinformation on the changes needed to the American health care system. You care seeing a constant dialogue from the "no changers" who are trying to change the argument from Americans needing good, affordable health care to arguments about cost, rationing and even welfare queens. You are also seeing horror stories about "socialized medicine" and the lack of care and poor quality. The "no changers" insist on comparing the US and the UK when it comes to health care but the reality is that there's really very little in common with the US and UK in terms of health care today or even in an Obama-sponsored system.

What you will not see from the "no changers" is any comparison with the French system where there is a mix of public/private. The "no changers" don't want anyone to look too closely at the French because the French system is consistently rated among the best in the world. Which makes many of the lies the "no changers" use very inconvenient. How much French-bashing can you do when the French health care system is number one and the system in the US, which the "no changers" want to preserve, comes in at number 37 and even the much derided system in the UK comes in at number 18. I mean really, what does it say about the US system if it's so far behind a failing system like the UK's NHS? That should be enough answer for anyone.

Me and 4 Others

This isn't very encouraging.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report was released Tuesday, and it lived up to its acronym. In March, the number of job openings decreased by another 256,000. That made for a total of 2.7 million job openings. In December 2007, when the recession began, there were 4.4 million openings. With 13.2 million Americans officially out of work, that means there are now 4.8 unemployed people for every available job.

Big Energy Strikes Back

Updated below:

Every time you pull up to a gas pump...remember. Every time you see some "feel good" big energy commercial on TV or in the newspaper...remember. The special interest energy people are desperate to prevent change. They want us to waste energy. They want business as usual. They want bloated, gas guzzling SUV's. They don't want energy efficient houses. They don't want mass transportation. They don't want the U.S. or any other country to be more efficient. They do not have your or my best interest in mind when they throw millions of dollars at those who want serious change in how we use energy. They care about one thing and one thing only and that is continuing their obscene profits. Remember.

America's oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5m in the first three months of this year in an intense effort to cut off support for Barack Obama's plan to build a clean energy economy.

The spoiler campaign runs to hundreds of millions of dollars and involves industry front groups, lobbying firms, television, print and radio advertising, and donations to pivotal members of Congress. Its intention is to water down or kill off plans by the Democratic leadership to pass "cap and trade" legislation this year, which would place limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

A defeat for the bill would have global consequences. The international community is depending on America, as the world's biggest per capita polluter, to set out a firm plan for getting off dirty fuels in the months before crucial UN negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

Update: I spoke too soon...this from Grist...
Dirty energy interests have spent $79 million this year lobbying Congress

According to the latest lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil and gas industry spent nearly $44.6 million lobbying Congress in just the first three months of this year, and ranked second only to the health care and pharmaceutical industries in total spending. Electric utilities spent $34.4 million, and businesses in the energy and natural resources sector as a whole spent $102.7 million.

To find out how much clean-energy businesses spent, you have to search down into the "miscellaneous energy" category, which includes wind, solar, biofuels, hydro, and other industries—and even then their combined spending only totaled $14.4 million. The American Wind Energy Association was the biggest renewable spender in that category, at $1.2 million. No other organization or company in the category topped $1 million.
Environmental groups have spent even less—just $4.7 million so far in 2009. The biggest spender among green groups was the Environmental Defense Action Fund, which laid out $300,000.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a staunch opponent of climate action, tops the list of individual spenders on all issues, at $15.5 million. Also on that list: ExxonMobil at $9.3 million, Chevron at $6.8 million, ConocoPhillips at $6 million, and General Electric at $4.8 million.

Of course, it would be wrong to assume that all of these big-energy spenders are lobbying against a climate bill. ConocoPhillips and GE, for example, are both members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and ConocoPhillips’ senior vice president testified in support of the House climate and energy bill last month. But it does give you a sense of just how much renewable-energy groups and enviros are being outspent on the Hill.

Foiling teh Birds

I hope everyone had a great weekend...I see Cookie Jill has been de-evacuated since the fires in Santa Barbara are under control.
Got a late start on the tubes this morning since mini monk(daughter) volunteered to come by after she got off shift and help move the giant slices of pine tree that have been littering the back forty since she and her mates cut down my leaning tree. About all you could do with them was roll them where they needed to be. We now have a huge stack of pine logs along the western fence. In twenty years or so it will be great compost! Thanks MM!
I think I finally have a solution to the birds and my garden. I have fashioned 'tents' of poultry wire fifteen feet long. The fencing is two feet wide so folding it down the middle makes a little one foot high tent. This gets placed over the seeds until they pass the get pulled by bird stage. Initial tests seem promising. I will use them for the corn (when the new seed arrives) and then shift it to the next replanting of butter peas. The birds left the other beans alone but for some reason they treated the butter pea shoots the same as the corn shoots. Devils!

Damn Smart Birds

Mother Nature won one today and demonstrated once again why gardening, while overall very rewarding, can sometimes be hugely frustrating. I had rushed to get all my corn planted before the recent predicted rain and was successful. Yesterday the first new shoots of corn were peaking through the ground and today a good 70% were up and on their way. About an hour ago I discovered that some bird or birds seem to know that when they see the corn shoots that there is also a kernel of corn just beneath the surface. Sometime this morning the culprits pulled up at least half of the new shoots and consumed the tasty morsel at the bottom leaving the two tender green shoots laying there. Needless to say I am disappointed. Madam and I have covered the remaining corn with deer netting and we'll see if that stops the destruction. I have also ordered more seed corn from Seed Savers so we can start again. Spit!

I was going to post today on the new addition to the garden in the picture we put in place yesterday but now that he has proven an utter failure and completely incompetent I will pass.

Too Big a Piece of the Pie

An article at the New Rules Project by Stacy Mitchell talks about about credit card fees. We're not talking about the myriad nuisance fees like late fees and overdraft fees that you can avoid with diligence but the transaction fees that are skimmed by the credit card companies on every single credit card purchase:

Although the exact rate charged on any given transaction varies widely depending on many factors, including the size of the business and the type of card, the average interchange fee in the U.S. is now about 2% of the value of the sale — two to six times the regulated rates imposed on Visa and MasterCard in Australia and much of Europe.

....Interchange fees now comprise a substantial share of the income these companies make on credit cards. In 2004, card issuers took in $28 billion in interchange. By 2008, that figure had shot up to $48 billion. That's more than one-quarter of all credit card revenue and more than the total collected by banks in credit card late fees, over-the-limit fees, and ATM fees combined.

Business owners are helpless since they can hardly stop taking credit cards and they aren't allowed to directly pass along transaction fees to consumers. You can rest assured though that these fees wind up coming out of our pockets eventually. Merchants have absolutely no bargaining power at all as to turn away credit card and debit card users would be a disaster in today's world. To understand how bad we are getting screwed you should understand that in Europe, transaction fees have been cut to 0.3% by the EU government.

We can chip away at the credit card companies with various limits and caps on interest rates and all sorts of nickle and dime rules but until we force them to restrict their take of American business to a reasonable percentage then we are just pissing into the wind. If I am not mistaken adding a percent or so to the profits of American business might be a pretty stimulus in itself.

Credit and debit cards are supposed to facilitate business by providing a symbiotic way for consumers to interact with merchants. Somehow, in the U.S. at least, this has turned into a parasitic relationship with the credit card companies slowly bleeding the American economy by taking an unwarranted share of each transaction. I am not against Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express and I expect them to make a fair profit. Fair being the operative word. This is just another example where, on many fronts, the EU is ahead of the U.S. in making sure the playing field is somewhat level with respect to the relationships between business and consumers.

H/T Kevin at Mother Jones

Shrinking the Kids

This is pretty cool. I really love it when science finds something completely new, especially when it upsets the traditional applecart. Not only have the 'hobbits' been shown to be a completely new human species but this confirms the idea of 'island dwarfism'. Much to the chagrin of the creationists it also shows that a species, like humans, when faced with a marginal environment can evolve by downsizing to match the available resources, given time. Talk about a classic example of selective adaptation.

A miniature species of extinct humans, nicknamed "hobbits", possessed unusual anatomical features explained by their complete isolation from the rest of humanity for thousands of years on their remote island home in Indonesia, studies have found.

The tiny people, who grew to an adult height of no more than three feet, astounded scientists in 2004 when a skull and partial skeletons were unearthed from a cave on the island of Flores. Radiocarbon dating suggested that the species, Homo floresiensis, had lived in and around the cave for tens of thousand of years before dying out about 17,000 years ago.

The latest research into H. floresiensis has found that they were flat-footed, long-toed creatures who could walk easily on two legs but would have found it difficult to run at speed. A separate study suggests that their very small heads, which were perfectly in proportion to their bodies, were the evolutionary outcome of living on such a remote island for so long.

In The Beginning

I realized that I have been talking about gardening for quite some time but haven't posted a picture of the garden as it is now before everything is up and growing and there is green everywhere. Here is a picture of the garden as of today (5/6/09). Still not a lot growing that is visible...give it a month.
If you are interested...
In the left foreground is the garlic, to the right artichokes, eggplant, cabbage, potatoes, leeks and a little broccoli. Behind that are the tomatoes in their cages and behind that more tomatoes and all the peppers. The bamboo teepees are pole beans (green beans) and the balance of that row to the left are butterpeas. More beans and okra are immediately behind the teepees and at the back is the white and yellow corn and still more beans of different types. Off to the right, in the back, you can see the hills for the squash, cukes and melons. In the right foreground are the peas and behind them the sweet potatoes. Still left to go in are the winter squash and a few other things. I will get another picture or two as things progress (or not).

I thought I had better prove I was actually gardening after all the talk. Oh, you can click on the picture if you want a bigger rendition.

Nature's Little Rule Book - 1st Rule

I stumbled upon a very interesting website the other day and while it hasn't been updated since 2007, apparently, there are some very good essays to be had. One the most interesting and provocative was an essay by the site's owner Oneida Kincaid called "Nature's Little Rule Book". It is written by Mother Nature to us humans and reminds us of some of her basic truths and rules. I think it would be fun and possibly interesting to post the 10 rules over the coming weeks and see what kind of discussion(if any) it generates. Here is the introduction and the first rule:

Oneida Kincaid: Nature’s Little Rule Book

Hello, dearies, this is Mother Nature. I’m speaking up here because you humans seem to have an awful lot of difficulty understanding and living in accord with the rules of life on Earth, so I thought I’d lay it all out for you in a very simple and direct form. This is very important, so please pay close attention.

Rule No. 1 - Life on Earth is a web, NOT a pyramid.

At first glance, this rule may seem obvious, even trite. “Well, of course,” you may say. “I know that! Tell me something I don’t know!”

But this rule is not directed at your rational mind, which probably knows perfectly well that life on Earth is a complex interweaving of hundreds of millions of different kinds of organisms and processes. Instead, it is aimed at your cultural mind, the one that has been trained from the day you were born to believe in the mythology of your modern culture - a mythology that, when it is lived out in billions of peoples’ lives around the world, is destroying the web of life on Earth.

“Hey, wait a minute!” you are probably thinking. “We modern, scientific people don’t believe in myths anymore! Myths are only for less developed, pre-scientific cultures.”

But given that you humans seem almost completely unable to alter your destructive way of life even though your supposedly rational, scientific minds are generally quite aware that you are destroying the fabric of life on Earth, it seems rather obvious there’s something else going on than just rational, scientific thinking. That something else, I suggest to you, is mythical thinking.

In its most basic sense, a myth is simply a story that attempts to explain to the people of any given culture how something came to be the way it is. A mythology is a collection of myths that, taken together, attempt to explain and express a culture’s deepest understanding of the world and how it works, and the place of humans within it.

Of course, you modern humans don’t see your myths as myths, you think they’re The Truth, just like every other culture from the Greeks to the Maya has viewed their myths as The Truth. That’s what’s tricky about myths - they don’t appear as myths to those living in them. So although you think modern people have progressed beyond all that mythology stuff, the fact is that snuggled up right beside your scientific understanding of the web of life is the pervasive myth that life on Earth is a pyramid - with humans at the very top.

According to your modern mythology, the broad base of the pyramid of life is populated by all of the bacteria and other supposedly “primitive” forms of life that are viewed as being animated by merely the instinctive struggle for biological survival and reproduction. In your mythology, as one climbs up this mythical pyramid, life becomes more and more complex until suddenly there is the great leap to the much-vaunted self-consciousness and presumed “superior intelligence” that allegedly makes you humans so “special” and “unique” among all the rest of life on Earth.

A more extreme form of this “myth of the pyramid” goes even further, lifting humans completely off the top of the pyramid and placing them in the space somewhere above it. In this version, humans have somehow magically transcended the whole messy, instinct-driven mass of life: there is the “natural” world - nature - and then there are humans.

This mythic imagery of a pyramid with humans at top is designed to emphasize several key, interrelated aspects of the “story” being told by the mythology of human civilization:

One, that humans are so special and different from all other forms of life on Earth, that you have somehow been elevated “above” everything else;

Two, that because you are such a special species, you are exempt from the rules of life that govern every other species on Earth;

Three, by virtue of your superior position at the top of the pyramid, you humans are somehow “meant” to rule over and use the rest of life on Earth for your own purposes; and,

Four, even though your supposedly “civilized” way of life is driving you to both a human and ecological catastrophe, you can’t give it up because that would mean giving up everything that makes you humans “special” and admitting that you are not, after all, “meant” to be at the top of the pyramid, dominating and using the rest of life on Earth.

In other words, the guiding mythology of modern society is the “myth of human exceptionalism” - a story that tells you that humans are so utterly special that the rules of life that apply to every other species on Earth somehow don’t apply to you; that the world was, in effect, made just for humans so you could have a stage upon which to show off what a wonderful and “highly evolved” species you are; and that you have no choice but continue acting as you have, even though you now face ecological catastrophe as a result, because that would mean not fulfilling your supposed “destiny” as the most wonderful, special species that has ever walked the face of the Earth.

The myth of human exceptionalism also tells you that humans are so special that, unlike every other species on Earth, you can somehow control your fate (and the fate of everything else that lives on Earth). That is the enormous - and fateful - conceit and drive behind agriculture and the entire edifice of human civilization that agriculture has inevitably spawned - the desperate attempt to wrest your fate from the “hands of the gods,” to become as gods yourselves, supposed masters of your own fate. But you are not gods, you do not have the gods’ wisdom about how the world works, so you are making a real hash of things in your vain efforts to be as powerful as the gods.

I hope that by now it is clear that, regardless of how you modern, “advanced” humans like to think about yourselves, the fact is that you do have your own unacknowledged myths and mythology. In and of itself, that is not a problem. What is a problem is that your particular mythology - the myth of human exceptionalism - has led to the point where Earth now stands on the edge of a sixth mass extinction, one caused not by an massive asteroid from space but by 10,000 years of humans living an unsustainable myth.

What is worse is that you seem helpless to do anything to stop your incredible destructiveness, even though you now stand on the brink of ecological and human catastrophe. In such a dire situation, it really does become imperative that you try to tear the blinders off and take a hard look at the mythology that is driving you to persist in such a destructive way of thinking about and living human life on Earth. In short, you need a radically new way of thinking about and living human life on Earth.

P.S. I know some of you might jump ahead and read all the rules but let's just focus on one rule at a time.
P.P.S. I did a quick Google for Oneida Kincaid and came up pretty blank. If one of you are better at this sort of thing than I it would be interesting to know what has become of her since this was posted in October of 2007.

Santa Barbara Burning

Our friend Cookie Jill has been evacuated out in Santa Barbara. Keep your fingers crossed that she and her friends are OK and suffer nothing worse than a little inconvenience. The latest from CNN is not looking to good. High winds continue.

Slammed Again

We are in for another 2-3" of rain today and tonight. This will all be accompanied by high winds, possible tornadoes, hail and Goddess knows what. I don't want to jinx the end of the drought but enough already. Since I have been a bit under the weather for the last few days (fluish symptoms) I probably wouldn't be working in the garden much but we are seriously waterlogged and I am sure I am having some seeds rot in the ground instead of germinating. The trials of gardening.
Let's just hope the hail stays away. Tender plants don't do well when pelted with 1" ice balls and so far the tomatoes and peppers are doing well, in spite of all the rain.

RIP - Dom DeLuise

I was a big fan of Dom's and I got a big kick out of antics over the years. He was also a great cook and if you ever run across his first cookbook "Eat This, It'll Make You Feel Better" it is a nice little compendium of traditional Italian immigrant food. The recipe I posted the other day for Pasta Fagiole is derived from Dom's recipe but there are a lot of good ones in the book. No fuss but tasty recipes. Dom's father was a garbage collector in New York and that means his momma knew how to stretch a dollar when it came to putting a meal on the table.

Would You Believe?

Krugman stops by the 'stress test' issue and the leaks around them and I believe he is probably correct. The leaks around the 'stress tests' are merely a way to see how much bad news the public is willing to swallow on this. Sad commentary if true.

Alternatively, there’s Yves Smith’s version: these are all trial balloons to see how outsiders will react to different stress reports.

But that just adds to the bad feeling about all this. Even Brad DeLong, who has been relatively sympathetic to the administration here, is disturbed by the idea that regulators are negotiating with the banks about the test results. Now it seems as if the report’s contents may also be dictated by what, based on the response to leaks, the informed public is willing to swallow. (”Would you believe it if we say Citi is fine? OK, what if we say they need $5 billion? Not enough? How about 10?”)

As an aside, you can visit The Onion and see what satire is like when it is really close to home.

What is Health Care For?

Barbara at Mahablog has a good post on health care and the false assumptions about why we have a health care system in the first place. It's worth a read and there some good links as well.

If you pay close attention to right-wing arguments against national health care, you notice the underlying assumption: The purpose of a health care system is to support a profitable health care industry. For example, regulations that mandate insurance companies insure people with pre-existing conditions are bad, because they are bad for business.

On the other hand, if your underlying assumption is that the purpose of a health care system is to provide health care to people who need it, you must be a liberal.

Is H.A.L. Here?

This is pretty cool...and I have been waiting for someone to take "teh Google" down notch. Let's just hope that one of the monsters like Google or Microsoft let it live. This sounds like one of those large increments that changes the way things are.

The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet's Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.

Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers.

Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.

Tom Simpson, of the blog Convergenceofeverything.com, said: "What are the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organising internet? Possibly... I think this could be big."

Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a neat page of related information – all properly sourced – such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs and charts.

The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out "on the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.

Saturday Stuff

Good rainstorms here in Northern Atlanta over night. The garden is happy. The corn, beans, melons, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers I planted in the last week are ready to go. I already see the first leaves of the cucumbers peaking through this morning and I expect to see all of the melons and squash in the next day or so. The bamboo 'teepees' are all ready for the first planting of green pole beans to spring up(Kentucky Wonder) and I can't wait to see the vines start up. The butter peas will appear in the next day or so as will all the beans for winter storage. So far the October, Hutterite, Boston Favorite and Charlevoix Dark Red Kidneys are planted and with this rain will be growing in the next couple of days. Both the white and yellow corn is in the ground (Sowell's Evergreen and Golden Bantam, respectively) and should appear in the next few days as well. Of course, being a good southern boy, the okra and lima beans are planted as well.

There are still things to be planted but they can wait a couple of weeks as they are for winter storage. Hubbard,Delicata and Acorn squash plus an heirloom French squash. I still have the half runner beans and sweet potatoes to plant as well. The sweet potato plants should arrive next week and their bed is all ready.

Still sparse eating from the garden but we are eating lettuce, spring onions, roquette, and radishes. The bok choi and chinese cabbage is ready to begin coming into the kitchen as well. Spinach is still a few weeks off.

With all the rain and warm weather the weeds have germinated and the wet ground is the perfect time to get them out so today is weeding and mulching day. Backbreaking work, I'll admit, but it is a part of gardening and seeing a nicely weeded garden is good reward. The tender weed shoots will not go to waste though and will find a home in the compost pile making 'black gold' for the garden.

So I am off to the garden to pull weeds and spread mulch. I can't work too long today as we are invited to a Kentucky Derby party this afternoon and I will have to be out of the garden and cleaned up by 430p. Everybody have a great Saturday and if you get the urge I can always use an extra hand with the weeds. I will, of course, share in the bounty for work well done.

More on Jesus and Torture

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

Although the decisions which put us in the grim business of torture, body-snatching, extraordinary renditions, making people disappear, indefinite confinement without charges and warrantless wiretapping were made by the president and vice president, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints served as helpful enablers. Not only did they provide the legal architecture, they provided the "scientific" patina for the plunge into the barbaric business of torture.

Take Latter-day Saint Timothy E. Flanigan, deputy White House counsel, who, along with David Addington, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, and Jim Haynes comprised the secretive "War Council" of lawyers -- a self-appointed group Mayer describes as having virtually no experience in law enforcement, military service, counterterrorism or the Muslim world....

BYU law school graduate Jay S. Bybee was the assistant attorney general directing the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. At the instigation of Addington and Yoo, Bybee issued official legal opinions that redefined the crime of torture to make it all but impossible to commit. Barbarity was not torture unless it created pain equal to death or organ failure. A newly-declassified Bybee memorandum lists 10 previously top-secret interrogation techniques approved for use by the CIA, including waterboarding.

Incredibly, Bybee seems to have been unaware that the United States had prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime after World War II. In 2003, before his role in authorizing U.S. torture was known, Bybee was given a lifetime judicial appointment on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Had his role in torture been known, it is unlikely he would have been confirmed.

Two devout Mormons also engineered the more grisly wet work. Because the CIA lacked personnel in 2001 with interrogation expertise, the agency turned to two psychologists, James E. Mitchell and John B. Jessen, who had worked with the Air Force's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape programs. Neither had an intelligence or interrogation background or had experience with Muslim terrorists, but, according to the FBI, they had experience in designing, testing, implementing and monitoring torture techniques that were illegal in the United States and elsewhere in the civilized world...

Mitchell advised that suspects must be treated like dogs in a cage. "It's like an experiment, when you apply electric shocks to a caged dog, after a while, he's so diminished, he can't resist."

h/t Americablog