Hello, everyone, on this first Sunday and first day of July.  The weather certainly feels like July.  The weather people predict 90s for today and the rest of the week with strong possibility of thunderstorms each day.  I collected another handful of dragon's tongue beans which are now in the freezer.  I should gcut some more mint and lemon balm but I am thinking about being lazy today.  We did our shopping yesterday and ate breakfast out.  We got back before the high heat but it was still uncomfortable.  The patio temperature topped out at around 92.  We expect the same today.

Glad you are keeping cool, Kay.  On the voting machines--I have a nasty, suspicious mind.  Considering the easy with which motivated parties can hack the system I want a paper back-up and checks along the way. But then I think about the Repthuglican efforts to  purge the voting roles to combat nonexistent voter fraud and I suspect the move to paperless, computerized voting systems is simply part of their effort to steal elections--just in case they can't count of the Supreme Court to give them the results they want. Sorry if I sound cynical but I have had ten years of their shenanigans to become so.  I agree with you on the student loan mess.  I will die before I can pay anything on mine.  When I had a 'good' job it wasn't good enough to allow me to pay the full interest much less anything on the principle.  A couple of writers have described the system we now have for funding education as 'debt slavery.'  I agree with them.

I saw the reports earlier last weed that announced Charles Rangel's victory in his primary campaign.  Well, this piece from Politico (found by way of Political Wire) indicates that a definite question mark hangs over that 'victory.'  This weird and way-too-long election season is getting weirder by the day.  I suspect the results of the elections this year will be neither definitive nor satisfying.

While I can agree that this year has been disastrous for many farmers, I amazed at Scott Walker's hypocrisy.  He railed at those greedy public workers as he destroyed their bargaining power and their pensions but now requests a Federal disaster declaration for Wisconsin's fruit farmers.  That so they will qualify for Federal assistance programs.  I guess some 'animals' really are more equal than others.  It is interesting that none of the news sources are reporting the hypocrisy along with the request.

Maha has another interesting entry in the "Repthuglican passion to cut the Federal budget until their state needs Federal help" file.  This time from Michelle Malkin and several Repthuglicans Representatives from Colorado.

This intriguing item came from Yves Smith at Naked Capitalist.  Many years ago I remember that the original founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream restricted their own pay to about 20 times the pay of their lowest paid employee.  I also remember reading (some 30 years ago or so) that executives in Japan traditionally were paid the same 20 times their lowest workers salary.  I think that is fair.  Especially in today's world, where most CEOs aren't really entrepreneurs in the original sense of the word.  They are caretakers and managers.

I was somewhat amused with the reporting of the EU meeting this past week.  Everyone was ecstatic that 'Merkel blinked' and rescue funds from whichever three- or four-letter agency created over the last few years will funnel money directly to Spanish and Italian banks to shore up their balance sheets.  The Dow soared by some 280 points (give or take) on the news.  Me?  I was skeptical.  We have the spectacle of deeply indebted countries are going to more deeply in debt by accepting loans while many of those deeply indebted countries are on the hook for funds their governments are going to have to hand over to the which ever agency will handle the funds.  (There are so many I really can't keep track as they come and go.)  Charles Hugh Smith is also skeptical.  I wonder how long the euphoria will last before reality rears its ugly head and we realize how well and thoroughly f#%^ed we are.