Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool

It's right up to date.  It even looks for Stuxnet, that nobody-but-the-Americans-will-own-up
-to virus that  did such a good job slowing down the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

My color is still mud

Got warm enough to wash the car.  Big sponge, a bucket, some washing machine detergent, the garden hose, and there we are.  Trouble is, the car looked OK after a NH winter BEFORE I washed it, and son of a gun, it looks about the same AFTER I washed it. Real cars, painted black, always looked 100 % better after a wash.  A mud colored car looks about the same clean or muddy.
  Give Mercury a couple of points.  Wear points in the interior, like the  door arm rests, are a nice slippery plastic, from which the grime comes right off with just a little Fantastick and a rag.  Then do the floor and floor mats with the shop vac, and it's practically a new car.  At 82K miles no less.

Creativity for students, not faculty

Bethlehem Elementary School  students finished up a fun school wide creativity fair.  Students wrote essays, drew pictures, made models and wrote computer programs describing the plants, animals, and  landscapes of a new world, a new satellite of Earth.  Students were told that the year was 2154  and ecological disaster on Earth forced evacuation of the planet to the satellite.  Student projects described what the settlers from Earth might meet on their new world.  Students had a great time and came up with lots of original and cute ideas.
   Just one let down on the creativity front.  The faculty named the new world "Pandora".  Which as all of us science fiction buffs remember, was the name of the world in "Avatar".    You would think the faculty could have been more creative in naming their imaginary world.  Especially for a creativity fair. 
   There are plenty of legendary Greek gods and heroes who haven't been used to name a planet, even a fictional planet, yet.  Prometheus comes immediately to mind.

Adaption in Dandelions

My least favorite weed.  My tactic is to bend over and pluck them up by the roots. No herbicides.  So much of my lawn is greenery other than grass, I fear that weedkiller will  give me vast barren patches.  Druther have green weeds than bare dirt.
   I start early and pluck each yellow blossom as I see it.  I figure the early plucking prevents the early weeds from reproducing and overwhelming the poor grass.  My lawn has fewer dandelions than many of my neighbors.
  Ever notice that the dandelions sprouting in the woods, back of the house, edge of the driveway grow tall and proud and you can get your hand around them and pluck 'em easy.  Whereas the ones in the path of the mower grown really low down to the ground and are harder to pluck?  How does a newly sprouted dandelion know how low to grow?    I mean these are annuals.  Even if a dandelion was smart enough to remember the mower, these are newly sprouted just this season.  No over winter memory.  The low growers were growing low before the first mow of the season. 

Obama's IRS reaches out for small fry

After taking on the Tea Party and the AP, the IRS has enough manpower to threaten audits of very small fry way out in the boondocks.  Tyler Drummond,  nice young guy, fresh out of law school (graduated last year). Unmarried, no stock ownership, no home mortgage, has been doing odd jobs while looking for work.  (He finally found a legal job down in Concord)  Reported income on his 2012 1040,was well below the poverty level.  He got a letter threatening him with an audit.  We all figure that happened because Tyler has been active in politics up here, working hard to elect Republicans. 
   Same thing happened to Littleton Growth with Common Sense, a small civic group that lobbies the Littleton zoning board to allow new businesses to build in Littleton.  This is a tiny group, probably less than a dozen members active enough to get to meetings, working on the most local of local issues.  They don't have any money worth mentioning, Littleton is a small place and works on personal friendships, not campaign contributions.  But Obama's IRS has the time and manpower to threaten them with an audit.
Big Brother is in charge here.

Things are tough all over.

The Economist declares the entire world to be in recession.  GNP growth world wide has been falling since 2010.  World wide purchasing manager's book to bill ratio is only a couple of percentage points above contraction level.  They go on to moan about how things are particularly bad in Europe, but maybe the Americans will pull the world out of the ditch.  But they don't count on the Americans too much.  "It does not seem ready to resume the role of consumer of last resort".   Surprisingly for a magazine so full of good advice for everyone, they have nothing to say about how to drag the world out of the ditch. 

First mowing of the grass

I did it, front and both side lawns.  That gets my exercise done for the day.