If you hear an onion ring, answer it.

Pam and I went up to the outlet mall at Anthem today.
Did you hear that? I went shopping with my wife!!

The White House is starting an online program called "We the People" that allows people to create or sign a petition online. If a petition gathers at least 5,000 signatures it will get a response from W.H. and forwarded to the appropriate staffer for review. The program has only been announced; it hasn't gone live yet. I've signed up for an email alert to tell me when it does. I will be looking for a balanced budget amendment petition. Forty-nine states have some form of balanced budget law and IMHO the federal govt. should, too. They can easily build in necessary allowances for time of war and other situations requiring extraordinary action, but it only makes sense that a household, a company, a govt. shouldn't spend more than it takes in.

We have five - count 'em, 5 - blossoms in the lily pond today. (click to enlarge) That three more than we've ever had at one time heretofore. I have no idea why so I can't continue to do whatever it is I did, and they're small blossoms. But it's progress, even if unwitting progress.

A man asked a Native American what his wife's name was. He replied, "She is called Five Horses."
"That's a very unusual name for a woman, isn't it? What does it mean?"
The old Native American answered, "It means Nag, Nag, Nag, Nag, Nag."

The President is revealing his latest plan for economic recovery, a little bit today at an appearance before labor unions and more during his speech Thursday evening. I wish he'd come up with this plan first, two years ago, so we could have saved all that stimulus money, but never mind. He gets extra credit this time around for framing it so skillfully. He says we need to get America back to work, he's got the labor unions and management on board, and the Republicans need to put what's good for the country ahead of what's good for their party.
By putting it in those terms he effectively makes any opposition to anything he proposes an act of Republican partisanship that disregards what's good for America.
Pretty clever, that.

It's so nice to have all new episodes of Top Gear on every Monday night.