Hello, Everyone.  Nice cool night last night.  Today is sunny and clear with mid 80s expected today.  I got a number of plants trimmed yesterday and got a good bit of dead leaves cleared out.  The plants seem to enjoy the cooler weather.  I collected a handful of the cherry tomatoes, four large plum tomatoes ad two lemon squash.  I will water everything today.  I checked the lemon balm beer and oh! does it have a nice beery smell.  And it has an interesting flavor--I tried a spoonful.  The fermentation has stopped and I put it in the refrigerator to mature for a week or two before I give it a try.  However, I don't think I will repeat the experiment no matter how good the final product.  It requires a lot of lemon balm and this batch took everything I could reasonably take off my plants.

I wasn't going to comment on this story and then changed my mind.  Another company claims it did nothing wrong but is settling because, given the uncertainty of going to trial, it is better for the company, the share holders etc.  But a $150+ million settlement with states for inflating the prices of a large number of name brand medications on top of a settlement a few months ago with the Federal government for $190 million for overcharging Medicare seems to me to be a pattern of bad behavior.  And I think the penalty is way too low.  I wonder whether they overcharged individuals who paid out of pocket?

Once upon a time I spent a lot of time watching the Olympics.  Even after I stopped watching the sporting events themselves I still watched the opening ceremonies.  I just narrowly decided not to watch this year's opening and reading this piece on Agonist I am glad I didn't.  I would probably have thrown something at the TV and that would have been expensive.  But then, a second thought--this is precisely why we no longer watch as much of the "news" as we used to.