Good morning again, everyone. Yesterday was nearly perfect. Sunny, mid-80, light breeze. We were able to leave the air off and open the doors and bedroom window. Today will be about 10 degrees cooler but still nice. I hope we won't get any of the thunderstorms coming in from central Illinois. They say the northeast wind will keep them south of Chicago--how far south they don't know. Anybody else as floored as I am by the tornadoes in Massachusetts? What a year we have had so far and we have only just entered hurricane season. I just remarked over coffee this morning that we went from temperatures oscillating between the 50s and 60 to the 80s and 90s. What ever happened to the in between? Spring--the tolerable day between freezing you butt off and broiling.

I was going to take some pictures of the gardens but found the battery in the camera is nearly gone. We will get a couple of new ones next Monday. I shouldn't be surprised since it has been a while.

Now this is a notion I can support. Actually, I think the Treasury should have started not paying legislators before it started raiding the Federal employees pension funds by not paying the government's share.

Chris Martensen's blog had a link to this story from Wheeling, W.VA. I had wondered often in the past about what happened to people who had to try pay off the cost of winter heating if an early heat wave hit which has happened frequently over the last few years. In our area utilities cannot (by law) cut off customers for non-payment between October (I think) and April 1. The news media carry stories at each end of the time frame. I wonder how many people here are visiting Salvation Army shelters for cooling because they are paying off the winter's heating bill and cannot afford to turn on the air.

And then there is this bit of cruelty. At least the shelters aren't charging what a bargain rate motel would. I'm wondering why they don't. I love the selective application of the tough love. Free services corrupt the self-reliance of the poor but it does wonders for the too-big-to-fail banks' fiscal health.

We had a bit of a chuckle over breakfast. One of the CNN talking heads asked "What has happened to the recovery? Has there been a recovery?" We haven't seen it and none of the 'hopeful' signs touted by the media has affected us.