After much delay a few of the preliminary images from our Death Valley trip are online. More to come with higher resolution copies to be posted as well. For the moment this should show just how beautiful the wildflower season in North America's lowest spot is this year.

Perhaps I should start a list of places to avoid. These are businesses that don't understand customers. For several months I'd regularly shopped at an ARCO station at the corner of Paradise Road and Tropicana Avenue. Tonight there was a new sign on the pump saying credit cards had to go inside to pay. If I'll pay the ATM-tax imposed by the station owners I can pay at the pump, if not I have to go inside.

It seems this is probably to get more customers to use the ATM instead of the credit card function of the pump and to shift the costs from the profitable company to the individual consumer. With a little good luck the plan will fail, however. In my case at least, they have gone from a customer spending a few hundred dollars a month at their store to a non-customer. I'll gladly stop a block away and not have the hassle of going inside to pay.

With all the attention focused on protecting the US from terrorist threats there have been many reminders that often the enemies of justice are not foreigners come to attack our way of life. Since 2001 it has become easier to forget that our country has previously been attacked by our own citizens. Today brings the sad news that a judge and two officials were killed in a courthouse in Atlanta. This follows the murder last week of a federal judge's family members.