Good Sunday, All.  We are supposed to get temperatures in the 90s today and for the next several with a possible 100+ on Tuesday.  We are back into the oppressive heat--number two for the year.  We did get some rain yesterday afternoon--how much I don't know.  Certainly not enough to break the drought.  The next time we might get rain will be Tuesday.  I harvested five trays of peppermint and two of basil which are drying now.  Also got five nice Chocolate cherry tomatoes for our salad later today.  I saw some Roma tomatoes ripening so we will soon be making sauce for the freezer.  I have a pot of lemon balm and brown sugar on the stove from which I hope to brew up a batch of lemon balm ale.  I have no idea how it will turn out.  This is a just-for-the-hell-of-it experiment.  It may or may not be repeated.

I have been listening and reading the news-hype on this story for the last week.  It is a bit amusing actually.  On the one hand, as Susie Madrak says, it is nice to see the banisters take one in the teeth.  On the other, we can bet on the notion that somewhere, somehow they will recoup.  This is another of those fascinating situations where a service is provided that no one really wants to pay for: not the banks, not the merchants and definitely not the consumer.  To date, the credit card companies charged the merchants a 'swipe' fee on each time the card was used but the merchant couldn't recoup the fee by passing it on to the card user.  Now they can.  And they can give discounts for people paying cash.  It may get interesting.