Pleasant and enjoyable Friday to you all.  Our temperature did reach the low 90s yesterday.  I think the weather people said that was the 42nd day in the 90s this season.  We may or may not get the four more needed to tie the record.  We have errands on tap today so I don't think I will do more than water everything in the gardens.  I did take out two of the spent tomato plants.  One big difference between last year and this: I had a whole lot of green tomatoes late last season but not many at all this year.  The prolonged time with 95+ temps stopped them blooming.  All of the plants in the greenhouse are doing well though one of the patchouli doesn't look too good and one of the cabbage pots doesn't show any sprouts yet.

The hype leading to the Repthuglican coronation is in full spate.  I am ignoring it as much as possible as I intend to ignore the Damnocratic convention.  Everyone on the (s)news media was ballyhooing Romney's energy 'plan'.  I put that in quotes because the only thing beyond 'drill, baby, drill' he has added is a 'frack, baby, frack' clause.  Oh, and if I were Canadian or Mexican I would worry about his promise that his policies would lead to North American energy independence by 2020.  Did anyone else catch that?  I wonder how he would define 'cooperation' with respect to Canada and Mexico?

I don't know how often over the last five years I read some pundit predicting that the booming Chinese economy would pull the rest of the world out of the Great Recession.  Well, lately, I have been reading more stories like this one.



I think this cartoon (found by way of NBC.com) accurately describes the current economy very well.  But I saw a piece on CNBC yesterday that rather pissed me off.  They noted that middle class income had fallen over the last decade at the same time that the middle class had shrunk by about 5%.  They also cited a poll which indicated that more than two-thirds of the respondents had no hope that they or their children would have better lives in the future.  Then they brought in this 'expert' who debunked the whole argument.  Sure the middle class has shrunk, he said--because 60% of the people moving out of the middle class had moved up into the wealthy class.  Sure, middle class income as a share of the economy had declined, he said--because those who moved up were wealthier.  Sorry, you all feel so bad but really we are doing so much better.  Excuse me while I go barf.