The great thing about giving to charity is that you give what you can, even if it's a small amount. I didn't always think of it this way. I used to think that my donations wouldn't matter unless I could give large amounts of money. And in fact, I didn't give anything until Hurricane Katrina. Before that I was in school, and what little money I had was earmarked for Ramen.

As you might've seen, Bush just vetoed the SCHIP bill just as he promised. Way to go, Republicans! So much for that whole "compassionate conservative" thing! No, when Bush comes to shove, it's working class families that end up in the mud puddle. Or much worse.

John Edwards is pretty good when it comes to the credit card industry. To be sure, he has made an issue out of it, while I can't find much anything about the issue on either Hillary Clinton's or Barack Obama's websites. I'll give credit where it's due: He's willing to take on issues that matter to real Americans.

But then the flip-side of that is that I'm addressing this diary to him, and not to the others. They should listen too. But I think Edwards is the only one who might, and maybe is the one who can make the best political use as well.

More below the jump.

To paraphrase William Burroughs, gas price surges can be like one of those moments where everyone sees what's on the end of every fork. High gas prices force us to make decisions based on what matters most, and force us to be cleverer, and more efficient.

MasterCard's profits surged 70% last quarter, AP is reporting just this afternoon. The profit alone was $214 million, and it's a company record.

I hope you like paying for things you didn't know you were paying for, because you're about to get to do a lot more of that soon. Last month we learned that new MasterCard interchange fee rates were going to put the hurt on merchants and consumers alike.

Note: Kforet has invited me to cross-post this here, and I'm happy to accept. Hopefully this won't be the last!