one suspects that E Readers are not necessarily the safest way to celebrate this great holiday!

Snip***

A battle for donations and shoppers has taken hold in this fairly well-to-do part of the region as a crop of new players has entered the area thrift store scene, putting their stores in areas where they get the best donations.

Savers, a for-profit chain based outside of Seattle that is expanding aggressively nationwide, opened its first area store last fall in Ellisville. It’s about double the size of an average Goodwill store. And Savers is following that one with a store slated to open next month in the former Barnes & Noble space in Crestwood.

Another chain making inroads in St. Louis is Red Racks, run by the Kansas City chapter of Disabled American Veterans. It recently opened a in Ballwin after making its debut in the Affton area. A third store is coming to Creve Coeur this spring.

Snip****

Resale shops are one of the fastest-growing segments of retail, according to the Association of Resale Professionals. The industry has expanded its number of locations by 7 percent a year in the last two years.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/f73b10a0-9160-5919-aac9-e7b7a6283023.html

It's pretty much well known that the Postal Service Crisis is a manufactured one courtesy of the folks in Congress and their really "charming" ideas that somehow became reality. That said every crisis does in some way provide opportunity at least in that it draws attention to an issue. I believe that this one is no exception to that rule. So I would hope that somehow this "crisis" could bring about some reform in the Postal System and these are just a few random ideas, I am sure there are others that haven't come to mind.

1). Get rid of the stupid pre-funding the next 75 gazillion years of pension and benefits as step one, which would pretty much take care of the crisis part of things.

But then invest some money for the future, looking at short term stimulus and long term savings.

2). Build new post offices or retrofit older ones that feature roofs covered by solar panels & wind turbine for power.

3). Where possible pair those new post offices with offices of other government agencies such as recruiting offices or alike to reduce costs.

4). Convert as much of the delivery fleet as possible to electric or hybrid vehicles.

Just my random thoughts.....

Facts about Sweet Potatoes

"The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a dicotyledonous plant which belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Amongst the approximately 50 genera and more than 1000 species of this family, only I. batatas is a crop plant whose large, starchy, sweet tasting tuberous roots are an important root vegetable (Purseglove, 1991; Woolfe, 1992). The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum). It is commonly called a yam in parts of North America, although they are only very distantly related to the other plant widely known as yams (in the Dioscoreaceae family), which is native to Africa and Asia.

The genus Ipomoea that contains the sweet potato also includes several garden flowers called morning glories, though that term is not usually extended to Ipomoea batatas. Some cultivars of Ipomoea batatas are grown as ornamental plants.

This plant is a herbaceous perennial vine, bearing alternate heart-shaped or palmately lobed leaves and medium-sized sympetalous flowers. The edible tuberous root is long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose color ranges between red, purple, brown and white. Its flesh ranges from white through yellow, orange, and purple."

http://www.gone-ta-pott.com/national_sweet_potato_month.html

February 8, 1813 in Chesapeake Bay HMS Belvadire & HMS Statira vs. Lottery -

On February 8, the HMS Belvidera and HMS Statira sent out 9 boats to confront the schooner, USS Lottery, that was coming down the Chesapeake Bay. The Lottery turned around when it spotted the British boats and tried to flee the area. Despite the fleeing attempt, the 9 British boats overtook the Lottery. Under heavy fire from the Lottery, the British advanced and then boarded the Lottery. The American crew put up a strong fight, but in the end, they had to surrender to the British. The British took the privateer schooner Lottery, which had six 12-lb. guns. This was the first prize that the British captured in the Chesapeake Bay.
Conclusion: British Victory. Casualties: Americans: 19k&w, 9c; British: 13k&w


http://www.mywarof1812.com/battles/1812-1815-naval.html#130208

February 7, 1812, 0945 UTC (4:45 a.m.); (M ~7.4–8.0[2]) epicenter near New Madrid, Missouri. New Madrid was destroyed. At St. Louis, Missouri, many houses were severely damaged, and their chimneys were toppled. This shock was definitively attributed to the Reelfoot Fault by Johnston and Schweig. Uplift along a segment of this reverse fault created temporary waterfalls on the Mississippi at Kentucky Bend, created waves that propagated upstream, and caused the formation of Reelfoot Lake by obstructing streams in what is now Lake County, Tennessee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_New_Madrid_earthquake

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — "Xena: Warrior Princess" actor Lucy Lawless says she's won a "great victory" after a New Zealand judge handed her a modest sentence but declined to order costs sought by oil company Shell for her role in a protest aboard an oil-drilling ship.

Lawless and seven other Greenpeace activists were each ordered Thursday to pay 651 New Zealand dollars ($547) costs to a port company and complete 120 hours of community service after earlier pleading guilty to trespass charges.

Last February, Lawless and six other activists climbed a drilling tower on the Arctic-bound vessel Noble Discoverer to protest oil exploration in the Arctic. Another protester helped from the ground. Lawless spent four days atop the 174-foot (53-meter) tower, camping and blogging about her experiences. The action briefly delayed the ship's voyage.

Shell Todd Oil Services, which had chartered the ship, sought about 650,000 New Zealand dollars ($545,000) in reparations from the protesters.

http://news.yahoo.com/lucy-lawless-says-trespass-ruling-great-victory-003333192.html

Fox News is the least trusted network, with a new survey finding that close to half of respondents don’t trust the information they get from the network.

The news comes from Public Policy Polling in its annual survey of how Americans view cable and broadcast news outlets. The results were actually quite mixed, painting Fox News as the least trusted overall and yet at the same time ranking it the highest for how many people “trust it the most.”


Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/512627/fox-news-the-least-trusted-network-among-americans-poll-finds/#kTyeZc20GZ5dpUj7.99

A Washington Post Opinion Piece by a Peter Munson that I think is worth a read.

Since I returned home, a darkness has grown in me as both I and our nation have failed to live up to the sacrifices of these young men and women. I had no expectation of “victory” in Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever that would mean. Nor did I expect some epiphany of strategic insight or remorse from the nation’s brain trust.

I just found that I could not square the negativity, pettiness and paranoia in the discourse of our country’s elders with the nobility and dedication of the men and women I had seen and served with in Afghanistan.

Over time, as I listened to the squabbling, I realized that about the only thing Americans agree on these days is gratitude bordering on reverence for our military. It troubled me that the sum total of consensus in our discourse is deference toward the defenders of our nation.

Eventually, it dawned on me that the focus on defense was the root of our problem.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-01/opinions/36680943_1_world-war-ii-afghanistan-helmand

Sounds good for dinner tonight!