Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and more importantly through nominations made at TopComments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. Include your username so we can credit you, and send 'em in by 9:45pm Eastern to ensure they make the final diary.

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But we hope they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home...

Another cornerstone of the Daily Kos community is the comments written by its members—over twenty-three thousand in the past twenty-four hours. There were excellent examples to be found, so you can check out nominations from those of your fellow Kossacks who were around to read them in the past 24 hours.

If you saw any great comments that are not mentioned here, please link to them in your own comments below. The address of that mailbox:

TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")

Anyone can submit deserving comments to our address—the direct link to a comment is available from that comment's date/time—as long as they arrive by 9:30pm Eastern Time. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. Both link and username are important.

As brillig so wonderfully pointed out last night, we're just one week away from Netroots Nation, which is the third annual gathering that started life as Yearly Kos. As a volunteer helping to put this convention together, I'd like to share a bit with you from behind the scenes. Make the jump with me for more.

But first! The purpose of this diary is to showcase some of the spectacular contributions that keep us coming back to this site. Diaries have the Rec list and Diary Rescue. Comments have recommends and Top Comments! If you see any comments during your day of work avoidance and brain feeding, please send them along to:

top comments at g mail dot com

Please make sure that you include your user name so that we may credit you with the submission!

June has been a whirlwind month. I cannot believe that it's almost over. (To me, when you hit the 20's of a month, it's almost over.) This month, my daughter has graduated from elementary school, my husband has cycled with his team from California to Maryland, I've quit one job and submerged myself fully into two others. All of this has me thinking about VACATION!

Make the jump with me to read more.

As always, if you find a comment on the site that you feel deserves a wider audience, please email it to top comments at g mail dot com. Please do NOT forget to include your user name. Otherwise, we'll steal the glory of your submission. :)

The Internets are an amazing thing. We get so much use out of this set of tubes, it's flat out astonishing. I was contemplating the glory of the tubes the other day as I contemplated the really great things that have been happening in my life lately - all of which are internet related. There will be more about this in the near future - it'll be a diary titled "How Daily Kos Changed My Life". So while that is a story for another day, I think it's time to put together a list of really useful websites. I'll start out with a bunch that I either can't live without, or just find to be fun. Your mission is to add to this list in the comments.

But first, a word from our sponsors. The comments are the glue of this site, and there are so many of them every day, it's easy for some really great comment contributions to go unnoticed. Please, do your part to avert this tragedy! Send deserving comments to topcomments at g mail dot com. And don't forget to include your user name - we want YOU to get the credit!

The day of Barack Obama's incredible speech, something extraordinary happened. I didn't know that it was extraordinary at the time, I just thought that it was a nice conversation and the prelude to an enjoyable evening.

I posted about it here.

So, the dinner happened Friday.

My friend is a former Republican. I diaried about her conversion (before the 2006 elections) here.

After dinner, we hooked my computer up to the television and brought up Obama's speech on YouTube.

Make the jump to find out what happened after we watched the speech. But before you do, remember that if you see a comment during the day that just needs more exposure, please, please send it along to the Top Comments crew for inclusion in that evening's diary honoring the best and brightest contributions, comment wise, to that day's Daily Kos experience. Your submissions should be sent (complete with your user name) to topcomments at g mail dot com. Now, follow me for a continuation of Friday's events.

I had another diary planned for tonight. (Don't I always?)

Then I checked my mail, and all thoughts of that diary went flying out the window. I know that parents across the great state of California are getting letters like the one I received today. I would imagine that most of them are as disgusted as I am.

More after the jump, but first - if you notice a comment on the site that you feel deserves a wider audience, please forward it along with your user name, to top comments at g mail dot com. We encourage and welcome submissions!

Gosh, it feels like forever since I've done one of these!

It's that time of year when the days are on the verge of getting longer, but the weather hasn't quite gotten the notice that winter is soooo last season. It's the time of year where the holiday hangover is almost a memory..... just in time for tax season. This, combined with various household nuisances and primary overload, has me wishing I could just fly away somewhere....

As always, please email any comments which you feel deserve more visibility within the Daily Kos community to top comments at g mail dot com. (Remove the spaces before hitting send, please.) Make sure that you include your user name for proper credit.

Thanks so very much to everyone who submits comments and helps make this series the wonderful thing that it is!

We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos.  Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain.  We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.

One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.

Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations at made at topcomments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. (We welcome your submissions - and remember to leave your user name, for credit!)

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But hopefully they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home!   Join us beneath the fold...

We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos.  Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain.  We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.

One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.

Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations at made at topcomments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. (We welcome your submissions - and remember to leave your user name, for credit!)

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But hopefully they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home!   Join us beneath the fold...

We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos.  Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain.  We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.

One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.

Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations at made at topcomments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. (We welcome your submissions - and remember to leave your user name, for credit!)

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But hopefully they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home!   Join us beneath the fold...

Today's diary was supposed to be different. However, my computer decided that it has been an unsung hero for too long, and it stepped up this morning and asserted its need for recognition. In so doing, I became aware of exactly how long it had been since I'd backed it up. (I'll give the embarrassing details after the jump.)

As always, please submit those comments you feel deserve a wider audience to  TopComments at gmail dot com. Please include your user name to insure proper credit. Because after a day like today, I might just credit myself! (Okay, not really, because doing so WOULD cause me to lose sleep, and there are few things in life I like more than sleep!)

More high tech follies and tonight's Top Comments after the jump!

Recently, I took part in something on this website that was extraordinary. As I'm sure you're all aware, Southern California is dealing with wildfires.  I went to bed last Sunday after a great day of hiking Mount Woodson with my husband and sister, and then having a really nice dinner with my dad and his wife. While stopping off at my sister's house, we saw on the news that a fire had broken out, near Potrero. Being the politically active folk that we were, we joked that Blackwater had set the fires to burn out resistance to their proposed new facility here. And that was pretty much it.

We had dinner at my parents and learned there that another fire, near Santa Ysabel had broken out - that caused concern because we have relatives in a town near there, called Ramona. (In addition, Santa Ysabel is home to Dudley's Bakery, which produces some of the best bread I've tasted on this continent!) However, we went to bed Sunday night with no bad news.

Follow me over the jump for more, and for today's Top Comments. If you come across a comment that you feel deserves a wider audience, please submit it, along with your user name to TopComments at g mail dot com.

I'm sick. There's been something going around, and I wasn't nimble enough to get out of its way before it rolled over me. No biggie, I'm sure it'll pass soon enough (no strange new pimply looking 'bites' on my body, so I'm banishing all thoughts of staph infections.) But for the past three days or so, I've been decidedly under the weather.

Whenever I'm sick, I look at it as a directive, an absolute order from my body, to be a complete sloth. So here I sit, in my comfy sweats. I've got a great, soft blanket that I'm snuggling under. Napping is a must. When awake, I'm alternating between audio books and paperback books, and having a blast with both. I'm eating grilled cheese sandwiches and cream of tomato soup, and drinking chamomile tea. I feel like I'm a child again - except, of course, instead of mom cooking for me, I'm either doing it myself, or the asimbaclan is doing it for me. (I am so blessed to have them! Though the cats can't quite grasp the art of whisking the soup just yet, and they tend to hog the milk for themselves....)

We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos.  Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain.  We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.

One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.

Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations at made at topcomments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. (We welcome your submissions - and remember to leave your user name, for credit!)

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But hopefully they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home!   Join us beneath the fold...

We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos.  Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain.  We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.

One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.

Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations at made at topcomments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. (We welcome your submissions - and remember to leave your user name, for credit!)

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But hopefully they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home!   Join us beneath the fold...

As you may know, some of us kossacks are involved in an informal little group we like to call Hiking Liberally. (We're not associated with the Living Liberally folks, but I did share with them our idea at YearlyKos!) Hiking Liberally got its start when one of our own, kriser, was training for a ten day backpacking trip into the southern Sierra mountains. It grew from there. This past weekend, in an effort to see if I could handle backpacking (I have issues with my knees, among other things), kriser (who is also my sister) and I went on a three day backpacking trip into the Southern Sierra Mountains.

Make the jump to find out what happened, read about the very interesting surprise ending (which tangentially involved gunfire!), and see some spectacular photos!

As always, please submit any comments you feel deserve wider attention to topcomments at g mail dot com. Please make sure you include your screen name for proper credit. Otherwise, today, I'll give it to kriser for her extraordinary guide abilities! (Not to mention the fact that she makes a mean mountain pancake!)

Many of us in this community consider ourselves to be environmentally responsible. We recycle. We use compact fluorescents. We use reusable bags when shopping. We buy locally and organic whenever possible. We use products that are friendlier to the environment for cleaning. I could go on and on, and I know that one of the reasons I love this site is that I will always learn of something else I can do to lower the impact my family and I have on the planet.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I learned about a company that produces environmentally friendly cleaning products, and then takes it one step further. It's a new sort of consumerism that I've seen in a few places, and I love it!

Submit your nominations for top comments to topcomments at g mail (dot) com. Please make sure to include your username or I'll give Ambrosius the credit - just because he's off backpacking right now.

Follow me below for more.