Good morning, everyone. Bright, sunny day today that we expect to hit the high 80s--which means the 90s on my patio. I will water early and do a bit in the gardens but on these hot days I do minimal gardening. I found blossoms on my acorn squash and cucumber so those are looking up. The damned Colorado potato beetles are back. I squashed six yesterday but decided to spray. I am not one of those who are adamant against using chemical insecticides--I just use the least toxic and most transient I can find. They found the lemon balm I have on the fence but haven't touched the patches I have in the containers. I hope that remains the case.

Glad you liked the pictures, Kay. This is, so far, the best year of the four I have been actively gardening on that cement patch. Hope it continues. And I agree totally with your comments on the cloud and the insane Repthuglicans.

I love the title of this Crooks & Liars piece: 'Oh, those annoying peasants!' The 'annoying peasants' are Montanans who are upset both by the Exxon spill and the condescendingly slow responses (verbal and otherwise) to the spill. The problem here is that Exxon only values the oil being moved and the only thing the company really regrets is the loss of the oil they could have sold and the costs associated with cleaning up the spill (which they will make sure are as small as possible). The costs Montanans see (loss of revenue, loss of trout fishing, loss of other wildlife, loss of irrigation and drinking water) mean nothing to the company. That is the problem with so much of our industry in this modern age. The corporate decision makers and stockholders are too far removed from the people and areas most affected by accidents. And they not only don't feel any urgency about the situations their failures cause but actively dismiss the concerns of those affected.

Karoli at Crooks & Liars had this nice post featuring a Repthuglican representative getting taken to task by a constituent. The comments are right on the money to my way of thinking. Somehow I rather doubt the dear boy will take the message to Cantor. It isn't what any of them want to hear.

We went out to do our weekly grocery shopping today and saw another reason to hate the way we celebrate the 4th: all the trash from the various fireworks littering the street. Can't these bozos ever clean up their own messes? Evidently not.

Firedoglake has another headline I really like: 'Is America A Representative Democracy or a Mirage Democracy?' And the most telling stats in the article: Only 42% of Americans believe in our government and how well it works. And less than 25% approve of the job our legislators are doing but fully 90% of those idiots are expected to get re-elected. Is it really a choice when most of us feel that we are voting for the lesser evil?? It is rather like the choice that 95-year-old woman was given by the TSA: 'give us the Depends or you won't get on the plane!!' In other words, no choice at all.