Reprinted with permission from the author. Dave Ribar is a Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he teaches several graduate classes and conducts research on issues and programs related to poverty. He has previously taught at The George Washington University and at Penn State University. The original can be found at Applied Rationality.

Last Friday, Rep. Boehner, the Republican minority leader, promised "over the coming days, you're going to hear an awful lot about the specifics of what we would do to lower the cost of health insurance in America and really do this in a step-by-step gradual process."

I can barely express how excited I am to congratulate Asheville and BlueNC blogger, Gordon Smith, who won a seat on the Asheville City Council. Gordon, who blogged as Screwy Hoolie and has been blogging longer than BlueNC has been in existence, beat Republican Carl Mumpower handily. Mumpower ran for congress against Heath Shuler in 2008.

Congratulations Gordon. I'm happy for you and so, so proud of you. I can't wait to follow your career.

Anthony Foxx is Charlotte's next mayor. He is the first Democrat to serve as mayor in 22 years. Turnout was around 21% and it looks like Democrats were turning out during early voting. To go along with their new mayor, Charlotte Democrats will now hold an 8-3 advantage on the City Council.

Put that in your teacup and sip it.

GOTV efforts are especially critical tomorrow for Chapel Hill's mayoral candidates. Mark Kleinschmidt trails Matt Czaikowski by one point. Tom Jensen does note that the polling does not include cell phone only users which means a lot of students aren't being polled. For full results go to PPP's blog.

There's still time to knock on doors and make phone calls and volunteer to greet voters at the polls for Mark. I'm sure Jake will be here momentarily to provide us with all the particulars.

I've shared some of my veggie pictures with you and now it's time to share some of my flowers and other treats from my garden. I don't have that many. Our land was pretty wild and weedy when we bought it and I'm struggling with just how much I want to tame it. I'm hoping to find just the right balance between my structured gardens and the wonderful flowering weeds that border our woods.

We learned very quickly that we would not have a lawn. Killing all of the weeds on almost four acres would take too much time, energy, money and harsh chemicals. The few beds I have, I dug manually so that the top 4-5" layer of invasive weeds were completely removed. Within months, though, the weeds were back. It is a constant struggle to keep those beds free of weeds. I dig the weeds by hand that sprout in each bed and use a very small amount of weed killer around each bed. That method is helping, but I hope to get to a point where I don't have to use the chemicals.