Good morning to you all on this cloudy but very muggy Wednesday. Some thunder storms rumbled through overnight. I don't know how much rain we got but I figure I will have to water late this evening. I will be watching the beds very carefully. We used the first of the green peppers yesterday in a kitchen-sink potato salad. That is one that has a little of everything--onions, peppers, corn, peas, ham and onions. Given the heat cold suppers are very attractive options. We hit 97 on our little patio yesterday. It may be worse today as the weather people are predicting air temps in that same range for today. The patio is usually 5+ degrees more than their official temps. So far everything is still looking very good if somewhat over grown. I am only half-kidding when I describe it as my 'jungle.' By the way, that pepper (one of the giant marconi)--absolutely delicious.

I hear you, Kay. You're crabby and I am increasingly contrary over the inanity that is modern American politics. I am absolutely disgusted by the Repthuglican strategy designed to simply deny Obama reelection even if they sink the economy doing it. Unfortunately, the Damnocrats are so desperate for a 'win' they seem willing to sacrifice what ever of their constituency they think they can most afford to betray. I have asked the question before but I have to ask it again (even though I know there is no firm answer): when will ordinary people in this country decide that this government which Abraham Lincoln once described as 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' is no longer. And what will happen when a significant part of the citizenry lose faith that the system works for them. And, like you, if anything interrupts our social security checks we would have maybe three months before we would be on the street. That is scary.

You're right, Lois. I doubt that either Murdoch (father and son) will be seriously tagged for the sins of their employees. I notice that the news stories have focused on Wendi Murdoch's vigorous defense of her husband, Rupert, during that silly pie throwing incident. I saw only one small snippet of an interesting exchange between James Murdoch and one of the Parliamentary interrogators. He was asked if he knew the term 'willful blindness.' He claimed he didn't after the questioner defined the term. Here is an interesting post on the issue with special attention to the corporate culture of Murdoch's empire. The crux of the issue is that, if there is information that a corporate officer could have know and should have known but claims he didn't know, he is still responsible for the consequences. Or as I have stated on the issue: if the Murdochs and their executive underlings didn't know what the staff were doing, they didn't want to know. But poor Rupert doesn't feel he was in any way culpable.

David Brooks has this nice op-ed piece in the New York Times today which draws a bead on the bull's-eye of Repthuglican politics and why we can't get any kind of centrist agreement on anything. Unfortunately, these are the idiots Obama keeps trying to negotiate with. None of them know the meaning of the word.

Prison Planet summarizes much of what I have been reading about the various droughts and the heat wave. And draws some of the often ignored implications of the situation. Funny thing is I remember the last Texas drought about 3 years ago when the news picked up the story of ranchers seriously reducing their herds (those who didn't liquidate entirely.) I remember telling Mom that we should take advantage of the reduced beef prices that were coming because we would be paying more later. That proved exactly right. We couldn't escape the increased price when it came because we have limited freezer space and, of course, even frozen meat has a limited shelf life. We did get enough time to reconsider how we used our meat and how much we needed. As I said, I watch the weather related news reports consistently--world wide. Why, you ask? Because of this from tomdispatch. And I do not assume that we lucky Americans are immune to what is happening overseas. After all, some of that is happening over here. It just isn't getting much attention and, when it does, we have all kinds of experts telling us 'don't worry, be happy.' The news sites and the bloggers have been reporting on how badly Texas lakes are drying up. Remember when the news reported the rapidly declining levels in Lake Lanier in Georgia? That got a lot of attention because Lake Lanier provides almost all of Atlanta's drinking water.