Good morning, everyone. It is certainly cooler and less humid this morning. We closed up everything early yesterday--when the patio temps reached 90. I managed to water everything before and everything looks really good. We had severe thunderstorm warnings and even a brief tornado warning yesterday. A couple of places recorded straight line winds of 80+ mph and one even had a brief tornado. Thankfully, most of this went south or stopped west of us. But we were concerned enough about the wind that I took all of the planters hanging on the fence down for the night. No way I wanted to risk the nice roses, catnip, lemon balm and others. Besides, if the wind did blow the pots out of the planters they would have fallen on tomatoes and peppers. One good thing about the storm front--it dropped the temps into the 70s and we were able to open up after it passed.

We just had a bit of thunder and some sprinkles. I barely got my first three tomatoes staked and tied. It may be a day of getting a little done sporadically.

I guess an issue is really an issue when the New York Times takes notice. Of course, this is just an op ed piece.

Crooks & Liars had this article this morning with a video link. Definitely sweet justice.

Robert Reich asks a good question: why aren't our politicians actually doing something about jobs and wages? Republicans don't really want to because they see the continued week economy as a key to retaking the White House next year and they want to convince the electorate that nothing government can do will help anyway. Meanwhile, the Democrats don't think they can get the votes for anything they might propose. And those most affected by unemployment and wage stagnation are not a particularly powerful group politically. After all, if you don't have a job or don't make enough to make you basic living expenses, you aren't going to donate lavishly to the politicians' campaigns

Nicholas Kristoff has an interesting op ed piece in the NYT. I don't think I need to comment.