December 29.30.31

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Most of the snow is gone especially on the southern sides of buildings. I had intended to shovel what was still on our patio the warmer temps have saved me that. It is now 50F.

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New Year's Eve Eve as someone just said. A number of people have said they will be very glad to see the end of 2022. I understand that because I am also. My reaction isn't as strong as at the end of 2020 or 2021.

I wonder how this will impact the kids entering the job market or applying to college. Decades ago, when I began studies at Indiana U. Northwest after about five years out of high school, the school required I take basic math and English courses for the first semester. Everyone (or nearly everyone) was required to take those classes, considering the proficiency (or lack thereof) of a large proportion of my classmates, most of whom were recent high school graduates, perhaps it was more necessary than I thought at the time. On the other hand I have often wondered what schools are actually teaching considering the abysmal ignorance of history and civics displayed by our politicians.

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New Year's Eve--and no we aren't going out or staying up late. The new year will come in all by itself.

Another day (5 days ago) and another cryptocurrency platform goes tits up. And taking 55% of most customers accounts with it. The stampede to crypto reminds me of the various (and there were several) gold "rushes" in our history: a lot of people hoping to get fabulously wealthy without a lifetime of work. Very, very few got anything for their efforts. The women who ran boarding houses and did laundry probably got more out of the gold fever though they worked their fingers to the bone to do it.

I find this puzzling. U.S. Steel is idling its tin mill in Gary, In. The management says it is because imports make the mill unprofitable. They are keeping the Portage, In, plant open. However, sometime ago, when we started to see empty shelves in the canned cat food aisle, the stores put up signs which said the shortage was due to a shortage of tin used in the cans. The supply of cat food is still short with big spaces on the shelves and the price has gone up. U.S. Steel should be able to supply the metal for a profit even with the imports. Why can't they? If the plant does reopen, as the management says it plans, I predict that they will have a nearly completely new work force that will be younger and cheaper. That is generally how an unprofitable enterprise becomes profitable.

December 28

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The warm up the weather forecasts predicted is a bit slower than they thought. I finally got the trash tote open thanks to a kitchen knife that passed its kitchen days long ago. It worked like a charm in cutting through the ice sealing the lid closed. I want the trash to go out tomorrow because I put the turkey bones I boiled down yesterday in the trash and wanted to get the whole mess out for pick up tomorrow. Couldn't do that until I got the damned tote open.

I am not surprised the Supreme Court decided to continue Title 42 and hear the  arguments of the Republican state's attorneys in a couple of months. The five justices who voted to continue this abomination of a stealth immigration procedure masquerading as a public health policy. Ever since the Constitution was passed there has been a tug between the states and the Federal government over where one set of powers end and the other begins. Evidently Justice Gorsuch expressed the part of the problem. Politicians have failed to address the mess that is immigration policy and applying a measure that was used to address a pandemic to an entirely different problem makes no sense. I don't expect any "come to Jesus moment" among the people in the legislature any time soon.

I have often observed that the people of this country have a few choices: to become one country in fact as well as in rhetoric which would mean the states would be totally subordinate to the Federal government and reduced to mere provinces, or to become finally a confederation of sovereign states with a much reduced (if any) Federal presence, or we can come to a new balance between the states and the Federal power. I don't know which way this will go. Note: we were a confederation once under our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation. That arrangement had a lot of problems which is why the convention was called to "reform" the articles--that resulted in the ditching of the Articles and the establishing of the Constitution. Our history courses below the college level glides over the period from 1783 when the War ended and 1789 when the Constitution was approved.

The other crisis in moving people is the cluster**k in the airports. Some questions stand out from the reporting. Why did Southwest cancel two-thirds of their flights while the others cancelled only about 2% of their flights? All of Southwest's excuses for their performance should have affected all the others equally after all the storm didn't dump on their gates only. The other problem is our "just in time" mentality. Southwestern claimed they had the necessary assets and people in place to handle the Christmas rush and were simply overwhelmed by the weather. But that doesn't really make sense because that forecasters were giving warnings days in advance. I remember nearly a bit more than 30years whenI traveled from Denver to Tampa in an early January. The airlines knew a blizzard was coming. Their planes were stuck on the west coast because of the weather and my plane was among them. The ticket agents changed all the passengers on my flight to other planes and arranged connections. I was changed from a direct flight to one going to Dallas for a connecting flight to Tampa. I only experienced two glitches. First, my checked baggage was lost for a while but I carried on a change of clothes and everything I absolutely had to have. Second, on the way home the airline had me listed as a no show on my first flight which complicated my return ticket. But I told them about the re-routing and they put me on my original direct flight home. But in the intervening years the timelines have become tighter, the capacity is so tight that open seats are scarce or non-existent, and the entire system is brittle because the redundancy has been squeezed out. But redundancy was what allowed the airlines to be flexible in a similar situation years ago.

I found this article which did surprise me because I hadn't heard about the chickenpox cases in the United States. I'm 73 and I remember having measles, mumps, and chickenpox but my parents didn't have the option of vaccinating me because those vaccines hadn't come out yet. I was already six years old when the first polio vaccines were issued. I often think that success is the worst enemy of many things. Labor unions successfully agitated for a living wage for a 40 hour work week, overtime pay, health insurance and but as union membership waned so did the number of workers who had those "benefits." Social Security has reduced poverty in the elderly and in the surviving children of covered workers. For three or four decades now we have heard more complaints from economists and political pundits for its successes. Childhood diseases which almost a right of passage once and killed a proportion of the children who contracted it. We have become used to the benefits of each, considered them our due and we many now doubt the value of each.

December 27

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Well, last week of 2022. The year is winding down as it has gone all year. The death toll for the storm continues to grow as the snow and stalled vehicles are cleared. At this moment, the news puts the tally at 57 of which 27 were in a single county in New York, around Buffalo. We have had so many weather/climate disasters this year. 

The "year of the con man" continues. A newly elected representative in New York just gave a non-apology apology for "embellishing" his resume--the one he ran on. He was so sorry to have disappointed people who may feel mislead. (I don't believe he is sorry for one damned minute. After all, he still will most likely be seated in the House of Representatives.) He claims he is "still the same person" and "is not a fraud." He is half right: he is the same person but he is a fraud. But that is no bar to him being sworn in or serving in national office. Crap.

Another Con, Kari Lake in Arizona, was slapped down by the courts where she had brought a lawsuit against her opponent and the officials in Maricopa County charging multiple examples of corruption. The judge dismissed the case brutally noting her lawyers produced no, absolutely no, documented evidence and her case was totally frivolous. Now her opponents have filed suit asking the court to sanction her and her lawyers for her baseless suit.

The Onion is a wonderful site for black humor and satire. I wonder how many of us would love to find some poor bastard who can't do a damn thing to make anything better and can't hit back to scream our rage at.

The Atlantic published a very nice article on a not so nice problem: private insurers taking advantage of Medicare Advantage. I thought from the beginning that both the ACA and the Medicare Advantage was merely a sop to the insurance industry that we all had to pay for.

December 26

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Ah, Day after Christmas. Only New Year's Day to get through a this "holiday" season is over. I am very glad.

Now we have a new year to contemplate. I have only seen a couple of stories about New Year resolutions and how to keep them. Normally, I see or hear a flood of such "self help" pieces. For the most part, I either ignore them or laugh. I haven't made "resolutions" for some years. I usually made a couple of mistakes: my resolutions were either too big and too nebulous, or they sounded good but weren't really important to me, or my intentions were derailed by my own perfectionism (which I have been trying for sometime to moderate). Instead of resolutions I think about smaller "goals" which might fall away if circumstances demand I focus on something else and which allow me to step back and learn from inevitable failures. I spent more time last year either stepping back from projects or beginning over when the project didn't satisfy me.

We have light new snow this morning so the storm system that has paralyzed so much of the country continues. We are still in a lucky spot where we haven't had as much snow though the temperatures are painfully cold. I hope the forecasts for warmer (and warmer than normal) temperatures later in the week come through but won't hold my breath. We aren't going anywhere so aren't inconvenienced by either icy roads or cancelled flights. The post Christmas travel chaos should begin any day now as people try to get home and the airlines try to get their systems back on track. Actually, seeing the news on TV, the chaos has continued because the Christmas chaos didn't really end.

Treehugger had this post today: Books Versus E-books Which are Better? The author says that it really depends on the reader, the book, and the kind of e-reader in use. The article doesn't say anything new to me and much I have experienced myself. I got my first e-reader, I think, 20 years ago after resisting for about a decade. It was an early Nook the memory of which I filled after about three years. I bought a second Nook with a large memory and soon exceeded it as well. The I found that Nook was really on a Samsung tablet which would run both Nook and Kindle software. Soon after I bought a iPad and installed both softwares, and have been using it ever since. I have yet to run out of memory. I did like reading a physical book but find the print often is too small for comfort and we simply don't have the room for the physical books anymore. I do like the ability to increase the font size and change the intensity of the light. I also like having the ability to highlight a term or word and look it up from the page. I now use only e-books unless it is a book I want in my little shelf space. I did see one problem that wasn't mentioned: sometimes if I increase the font size the formatting goes all screwy and columns, etc, can run into each other. Going back to the original size. I never considered the carbon "footprint" in either the e-books or physical books and I have never liked having to return the books to the library. Also you really shouldn't make margin notes in someone else's books.

December 23, 24, 25

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 We may get out of this storm with wind and a couple or three inches of snow. The Weather Channel has changed the forecast to snow petering out today and tomorrow with little more accumulation. The biggest problem will be the cold. The forecast says we won't break 0* today and will remain in the single digits through Christmas. By the time we have to go out again the temperatures will be back in the 30s and 40s and (glory be) even a possible 50.

I saw a different report on this yesterday. Over the last two years our society has lost almost two and a half years in life expectancy at birth. I like Improve The News because they tear into the data and give critiques of the most important narratives spinning the data. COVID did contribute but there are other strong currents that added to the situation which the "Establishment" view wants to diminish but which are likely to persist.

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Temperature is -1F at the moment with wind chill of -20 or lower. The forecast says we will get a high of (maybe) 12. Some possible flurries but the high winds may make it look like a blizzard. The Chicago Bears have a game today and the news is warning people planning to attend to be very careful of the low temperatures.

I skimmed this piece first thing this morning. Though it didn't tell me anything I hadn't already figured out on my own or read on other sources, I was increasingly irritated remembering all of the economists and finance/business pundits who focused on working people's demands for higher wages. I am quite sure none of them would refuse a pay increase to ensure the profitability of the company and the "health" of the "economy." But those who get less are expected to consume prodigiously while shivering in the cold, deciding whether to buy food or pay the electric bill, whether to buy medicine or pay for gas to get to work. Our economic institutions have done a great job of moving income from the bottom to the top for the last 50 years. Maybe it is time to move some of that back down the pyramid to the base that supports all of it.

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Merry Christmas

Mom said recently that it just doesn't feel like Christmas this year. Holidays just haven't much meaning for me--too much commercialism, too much attempts to sell me crap I don't really need. Christmas and Easter don't really mean much to me because I haven't claimed to be Christian for many years and Christmas is the worst of the commercialized holidays. Years ago I said that Christians lost the battle for Christmas early in the last century when commercial interests took it over and just "putting Christ back in" wasn't going to reverse that.

I finally put the winter wreath on the door and took the fall wreath down. I will have to refurbish them and do up new spring and summer wreaths over the next year.

I noted above that this doesn't feel like Christmas. Part of the reason is the dearth of good Christmas themed commercials. I have seen a lot of car commercials which is quite normal. But a lot of the the gadget commercials are are strange. They are the usual buy now to take advantage of the "limited time offer," and offering double the product for the same price if the customer simply pays for the postage. But all of them say that the company will or has already stopped production because of cost increases and/or "supply chain shortages." That is new. I have often wished fervently that the advertisers would stop bastardizing old favorite Christmas songs this year it feels like they have done just that and it feels odd.

December 21, 22

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Welcome to Winter--today is the Winter Solstice. We are expecting a massive winter storm starting today and going through Saturday. We are hibernating until after New Years.

The news yesterday and today has noticed a shortage of children's Tylenol and other fever meds due, according to CVS and Walgreens, to supply chain problems. Though the pharmaceutical companies are, at the moment, limiting customers to small number of items, we took stock of our adult strength meds and determined they were sufficient.

We finished our shopping yesterday--actually we moved some up so that we could be sure we wouldn't have to go out into crowds over the next two weeks. Shopping during the holiday season isn't much fun so we avoid it whenever possible. Others had similar ideas because there was a larger crowd than we normally see and a lot of open shelves. I got the impression that the merchants were having difficulty keeping the shelves stocked and, possibly, some supply chain problems. Our dairy was having trouble filling some of their customers, especially those who wanted goat's milk.

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Another day and still waiting for the big winter storm which is supposed to come in in full force about 3pm and continue through Christmas Day. We plan to go out to pay our rent before it gets bad so we can also wish everyone there a Merry Christmas. We used to pay in person each month but the pandemic forced us to start paying all bills on-line. But a recent problem with a scam which we were afraid had infected her computer (it hadn't--but caution seemed a better strategy) caused her to return to paper checks and snail-mail for a bit. We will do that again whenever it seems prudent and we will keep the old ways in mind for a backup.

Anyone else notice how annoyingly smug Mitch McConnell was telling reporters how satisfied he was with the spending allotments in the new massive omnibus bill. The military spending increased by 10% while the non-defense side of the ledger increased by 5%. So, with inflation running at 7+%, the military got a net 3% increase while the social side got a 2% cut. THAT was what he was proud of. As a number of bloggers and commentators noted, If we simply cut the military side of the ledger to parity with the other side (or to the level of the next ten largest departments cumulative spending, or to the next ten largest foreign countries' military spending) we could fund that child tax credit and/or fund other social priorities. 

The House Ways And Means Committee finally got The Former Guy's tax returns for the last six years. Although I have to quibble a bit on that--after all, in the next sentence the articles say that the IRS didn't audit TFG for the first two years of his administration as it was by law mandated to do. The Committee said at the outset that they wanted to examen the IRS with respect to its performance in this regard. Not a bad idea since TFG kept claiming his returns were under perpetual audit. I wonder if they could also examine the very intrusive audits conducted on two former attorneys generals that fell afoul of the TFG. Were those really justified? The fact that the agency didn't carry out its responsibilities with respect to TFG leads to suspicions to how well they do with regular individuals. This post by Rachel Maddow casts doubt on their excuse that they didn't have the resources.

Cartoon found on the Direct eZine.                                                                                                                                                 

December 19

 We have a medical appointment today so I don't know how much I will read and comment on. It is supposed to be quite cold over the next week with a good probability of a white Christmas. We'll see.

First up: Robert Reich has a few good comments on the massive military appropriations bill up for passage this week. Can you imagine $858BILLION which doesn't include another almost $22BILLION for replacing what the Pentagon has shipped off to Ukraine.

Interesting little comment on the news: We once lived in a country where voters were consumers; we now live in a country where consumers vote. I think it was a quote but I didn't catch the source. The commenter noted that Elon Musk is having a problem with Tesla because his customer base is becoming disenchanted with the brand. His customers live, mostly, in counties Biden won which also account for the largest part of the GDP.

The Telegraph has an interesting article on possible restrictions on electric usage in Switzerland. The government is drafting those restrictions to reduce the possibility of blackouts over the winter. The problem comes from an intersection of factors: the large amount of electricity derived from hydroelectric plants, the attempt to phase out nuclear power, the need to replace energy from foreign sources, and others.

December 16, 17, 18

 We had a bit of snow overnight--just a bit. Enough to put a thin layer on roofs, cars, and grass. It. won't last long after the sun comes up.

Robert Reich has a good piece on our "zero sum economy." Sometime ago another blogger said some of the same thing in slightly different terms. For years now the economy has been dominated, in terms of the share and "value" of economic activity, has been the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) which simply moves money from one group of pockets to others (usually from the pockets of those lower on the economic pyramid to those at the top.) The blogger used the term "tertiary economy" meaning that it did not actually handle physical things. The primary economy is extractive: farming, mining, fishing etc.). The secondary economy takes the products of the primary economy and either moves it to where it is sold directly to consumers or used in further production which is then moved to sale.)

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Well, so much for weather reports. We never got the sun and slightly warmer temps yesterday that would have melted the thin layer snow we had early. Then we had off and on snow showers--nothing severe. For the next week we are not likely to get out of the 20s with some more bouts of snow. I really do need to take down my fall wreath and put up the winter wreath.

David Kaiser had an interesting article this morning. I am always skeptical of statistics. Your results depend on which numbers you use or exclude and on your perspective. I remember an article concerning a rising fear of crime in the 1990s which noted that most people were actually very safe but a large percentage were afraid of being victimized by criminals. That article related the fear to how much news people watched: the more news watched the more likely the viewer would be afraid. I can see the statistics Kaiser uses to show that crime is often concentrated into compact localities but how the political and law enforcement use the statistics can be both exacerbate the problem and spread it. New York City introduced its notorious "stop and frisk" policy which didn't stop any appreciable crime and pissed off law abiding people who would normally have supported the police. I remember an a couple of decades ago which noted that 45% of illegal drug traffic was in the ethnic or racial neighborhood of inner cities and asked where the other 55% happened. The answer, of course, was in the white suburbs. If you follow the link notice also Kaiser's observation that two things, seemingly opposed, can be true at the same time.

Another thought: we are such a mobile society that a criminal act in one location doesn't mean the criminals were from that location (or even nearby). About ten years ago we had a series of smash and grab thefts of, mostly, electronics. One of the affected businesses closed after it suffered a third such robbery in less than two months. The local Target and Walmart took their merchandise off the sales floor and would only show them on request from customers. Several businesses, including our local butcher shop which was also robbed, put in barriers to stop criminals who used cars to break the entry doors. The robbers were not caught but were traced to Chicago--50 miles away. As I watch the news this morning, a story details how car jackers stole three cars from people miles apart and used in other crimes.

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The weather predictions have changed yet again. Surprise 😣. As the saying goes: making predictions are hard especially about the future. 

December 15

 Half-past December and it is cloudy and wet. Too warm for snow so no one will be singing "I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas" any time soon. We are planning on a very quiet day at home and tomorrow I need to put the turkey breast in the refrigerator to thaw out over the next week.

Gizmodo put out this article this morning. We follow the weather with an eye on how it will affect us. We knew when the drought hit the Canadian prairie provinces and floods hit the U.S. Northwest that beef prices would go up. They did. We knew when drought hit various grain and hay producing areas that dairy products would go up. The clerk at the local dairy we frequent apologized for the increase in prices for milk, yogurt, and butter. We assured her we weren't surprised and would continue buying their goods as long as they could produce them and we could afford them. Think about this: if the projections for climate change are right the future will be worse.

Today's post from Crooks&Liars provides a really good discussion of the Moore v Harper lawsuit now in the Supreme Court. It gives a better account than I can but the title caught my attention: Chaos Agents On The High Court. The author makes a point I have made in conversations here at home: I haven't any idea of what makes the "conservatives" of today conservative. One would think that they want to the country to go back to some past social ideal they think was better than what we have today. But they really don't have any coherent description of their imagined Heaven on Earth no any idea that a lot of people would think their Heaven is really Hell. Worse I don't think they give a damn for those who don't share their vision. But the term "Chaos Agents" reminds me of a post from a Heathen blogger from a couple of years ago where the author took exception to a meme going around in the pagan/polytheist/heathen blogs describing The Former Guy as "Loki in the White House." As a polytheist with a particular affinity for Loki she didn't appreciate her god being associated with TFG. I understand her objection but in a way it fits. Loki was one of the gods associated with chaos and change. Others can also be used: Bacchus, Coyote, even Odin. If I did a quick Google search I could probably find such gods in every pantheon. Human history shows recurring cycles of chaos and stability. To get to a new stable condition we have to go through the Chaos and disintegration. And it will be decidedly uncomfortable--or worse.

I may not have mentioned the increase in Group A streptococcus infections I both the U.S. and the U.K.. The U.K. epidemic has taken the lives of 15 children under age 15 and put more pressure on the stocks of popular antibiotics like amoxicillin and penicillin. Amoxicillin is the preferred treatment for pediatric cases of RSV which are also rising. Evidently other cases of respiratory viruses that aren't COVID, RSV, or flu. This situation is described here. We are keeping our masks handy and still do our shopping at times when we are unlikely to encounter crowds.

December 13

 Cloudy with rain expected for most of the next 10 days. If we are lucky that system that has hit Texas and Louisiana this morning will only bring rain.

Found this item on Crooks&Liars this morning. I wasn't surprised that Biden used and Executive Order to end the rail workers' strike and force them back to work. The article mentioned how the executives drastically reduced the work force to boost the profits for the shareholders. I wish there was a good way to to remake Capitalism so that values other than simply the almighty dollar and people other than shareholders are considered. For years business and industry have run on thin labor levels, just in time deliveries of merchandise and parts, and overextended facilities. It is a recipe for disaster when something upsets the applecart.

The news has been ecstatic over the report that U.S. scientists have achieved a nuclear fusion experiment which achieved a net energy gain. That has been, as reports have said, the "holy grail" of energy research. However, the experts think development will take a minimum of ten years. And I won't be around IF it ever does become an energy source. Even if I would be here I won't be holding my breath because too often in the past the initial reports haven't been followed by scalable development.

December 11, 12

Good morning. We have a gloomy, cloudy day though little if any rain expected. The temperature will remain in the 30s all day.

Oh, my!! Scottish and American authorities may have custody of the Lockerbie bomber. I don't know how many of you were even alive in 1988 when that airliner exploded in the worst terrorist related crash in history. I was 49 then and am now staring down my 74 birthday early next year. Anyone under the age of 34 probably looked at the news this morning with a blank look wondering what the fuss was all about. And I have to amend that first sentence because authorities have custody of the "alleged" bomb maker. He hasn't been tried or judged guilty yet.

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Another Monday and almost half-past December. We have an appointment to have our computers checked out after our adventure with the scammers last week. I hope the bastards didn't leave anything on Mom's computer and they didn't have access to mine but we think cautious is the best strategy.

I couldn't get on Bloglovin' for most of last week but connected easily today so I will catch up. I don't know what is the recurring problem with them but I keep the a tab for the sites I visit most often on my computer so I can (usually) go in directly.

The attacks on the North Carolina electric substations aren't the only ones lately though it was the focus on the news. That focus has faded now that power has been restored there. But I found a reference to another situation, or rather series of situations, in the Pacific Northwest on a blog yesterday and did a bit of research on line. You can find an account at the Guardian here or do a quick Google search. Security experts interviewed on the news shows repeatedly mentioned they have seen increased chattered on-line on extremist boards about attacking the power grid.

Robert Reich posted today about a strike of academic workers in California. I hope it has some positive effect for the strikers though I don't really expect it. Thirty years ago a grad student colleague applying for jobs in California (where her family lived) described the condition of "adjunct" instructors as "gentile poverty." Five years before that, when I was an adjunct instructor at a community college in Colorado I knew colleagues who worked at three colleges as adjunct and traveled between Greeley, Ft. Collins, and Boulder to teach three classes at each institution. That was the limit for adjuncts and the pay barely made ends met without leaving any cushion for emergencies. I knew another who developed a very popular course that was always filled only to have the administration give the course to a full-time teacher who was so boring he couldn't keep his own courses filled. He was so angry he told a large number of students from another course he taught who wanted to take that one that he wouldn't be teaching it. The course was less than half full in the next semester and many of those who signed up dropped it early. The academic industry was becoming a (gentile--😠) sweat shop when I was in it. It is worse now.

December 9, 10

 The weather people say a new system is moving in but we are on the southern end and should get rain while people not too far north of us will get, maybe, snow.

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Yesterday started normal with our regular trip to a local dairy but then went down hill. Mom got an e-mail that looked like a legitimate communication from a source we deal with. She called the number to update her program but there seemed to be a snag and they said they had to cancel the process and refund her payment. She was on our banking site to try and complete the refund but suddenly it looked like they had instead put in a massive deposit instead of a simple refund. (A big discrepancy with a 5 digit vs a 3 digit figure.) Fortunately, I was also on my computer in our joint banking accounts and I saw NO deposit while the operator was convincing Mom to reverse the "mistake" and send back the massive deposit. Mom was confused and handed the phone to me and after a couple of minutes (during which we did nothing with the computers) of telling the man about the mismatch I ended the call telling him we were going to the bank as soon as I hung up. I ended the call with him insisting that we had to reverse the transaction NOW. We took both laptops, still on line and on the bank page, to our bank and the teller quickly checked everything. Our accounts were correct and nothing had been edited or deleted. We will change our ids and passwords today. These vultures were slick. We were only a couple of steps away from emptying her checking account. Looking back we can see points which should have clued us in: a mismatch in the address the e-mail was sent from, the excuse that the problem with downloading the updated software was outdated software on our computers when we updated that (directly from vendor) only a couple of weeks ago, and the operator's repeated question about whether Mom's computer was the only one in the house. Can't emphasize enough: be cautious, trust your gut if it tells you something is wrong,

Now on to other matters no less depressing than the on-line vulture: Britain is facing some serious problems well below the chaos on the national political level. NBC has this fairly long story on line this morning.

Kyrsten Sinema has decided that she is not a "perfect fit" with either party and declared she is an Independent who will (mostly) caucus with the Democrats. I won't link because the story, in various iterations, is all over the internet. I do have a few observations. First, is anyone a "perfect fit" for any organization? I doubt it. I am not a good fit for either party either. Hell, I don't fit well in our current highly skewed society. The real trick is to negotiate between what you do fit with and what you don't fit; accentuating the first and mitigating, as much as possible, the last. Looking for a perfect fit is a fool's errand. Second, her "both sidesism" is incredibly self serving. She is looking for an excuse for her action that will absolve her of any blame and demand no effort on her part to resolve the problem. From what I have seen most of the blame for the acidic environment in the legislature rests predominately with the Republicans. Third, she appears to be self serving in another way: declaring as an Independent means she can stand for re-election without going through a primary against a probable Democrat candidate who is far more popular with Democrat voters than she is and which she may lose. She is making a bet she just might lose that in the three way race she will siphon off enough Democrat, Republican, and Independent votes to come out on top.

Gizmodo posted this story on yet another oil spill on the Keystone Pipeline. 

Responsible Statecraft discusses the new Defense Authorization Act which the politicians are trying to get passed in the lame duck session. It is utterly ridiculous to hand out over $850 BILLION to a totally unaccountable department. That is more than what we spent at the height of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and at the height of the Cold War. The increase (year over year) is more that the entire military budgets of most countries in the world including France, Germany, Japan and the U.K. I don't mind defense spending but I really want that spending to be effective and efficient. From what I have read about a number of the new systems they are neither. I will let you look that up. There is plenty out in the ether on it.

December 7, 8

Good Morning, All.

It looks like a good day for some sanity. Warnock won in Georgia and the San Francisco supervisors reversed their decision to deploy deadly police robots for the time being.

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Sunny today though we are expecting several days of rain over the next ten. Still thinking about what seeds to order but I haven't made any decisions yet.

The good news today is the Brittney Griner is coming free in return for a dirt-bag Russian arms dealer. Evidently, the Russians made an ultimatum: the one for one Griner for the arms dealer or nothing. Biden took what he could get.

More good news: the Respect for Marriage Act passed the house and goes now to the Biden for signing. If the Supreme Court does revisit the Obergefell and overturns that decision the Act will mandate that all states must respect any marriage lawfully contracted in any other state. No state can refuse to recognize a same sex union legally entered into in another state simply because that state doesn't recognize such a union. It would seem that Chief Justice John Roberts is getting his wish that many of the most contentious issue will go back to the individual states for whatever local resolution those local voters to decide.  About a decade ago, I first asked if the United States was really a cohesive country. For several decades, since the Great Depression at least, the pendulum seemed to be swinging in that direction. However, from the very beginning, this country has had a very strong tradition of local control. The tensions leading up to the Civil War involved issues of Federal control and States Rights. I will leave it for you to read up on that. That pendulum between the Federal and the States seems to be swinging in the direction of decentralized State power.

A company The Former Guy's lawyers hired to search other of his sites for confidential government documents found two at a storage unit in boxes that also contained a myriad of personal property. People keep asking why he took the documents. I think the mix of things the documents were found with (both this time and earlier at his golf resort) explains his motivation. He had them as flashy momentos that he could pull out to show just what an important person he was (and to his mind, is).

December 6

 It is too dark to see what the weather is like outside. Only 3:30am. What can I say? We go to bed early and get up early. And our two furry alarm clocks insist they want their food when they want it and they're petting when they want it. It is easier to just get up and do something. Right now I am waiting for water to boil so we can get some coffee.

Have you all seen the stories on the news about a hacking group (supposedly) linked to the Chinese government stealing tens of millions of dollars of COVID relief funds? Is anyone really surprised that the sloppiest program with the least effective oversight in history got hacked? And if they really look into it I don't doubt that "upstanding, red-white-and-blue blooded Americans also took Uncle for a bundle. (I wrote "supposedly" because tracing the origin of cyber attacks is notoriously difficult and slippery.) 

This assessment from Improve the News is right on:

Establishment-critical narrative: This is no surprise given that the government handed out more than $800B in COVID funds with zero checks and balances, essentially providing an open invitation to fraudsters and criminals. Coupled with the government's awareness of past Chinese hackers' attempts to steal from relief programs, American taxpayers could understandably believe their government doesn't actually care about safeguarding their hard-earned money.

The New York Times has this story which details a child custody case in New Zealand. The child services agency is seeking custody because the baby needs, REALLY needs, heart surgery which the parents would agree to IF the hospital would supply "safe blood," meaning from non-COVID vaccinated donors. That part of the story is both sad and unsurprising giving the depth of vaccine skepticism. What I thought both sad and bemusing at the same time was the sentence about the 62 year old man sentenced for conspiring to bring down the power grid to protest vaccines. Just a bit earlier Mom asked (in total unbelief) if North Carolina authorities are really thinking the vandals shot up the power station to stop a drag queen show. I think they are just desperately looking for anything that might lead them to the culprits. Petty motives for causing major difficulties (perhaps even life threatening difficulties) to a lot of people. Later in the article the author notes that the custody battle isn't necessary as unvaccinated people are willing to donate.

CNN posted this today which we found looking for details on a story barely mentioned on Morning Joe. The article about the unhealthy consequences of eating "ultra processed foods" started by listing "hotdogs, burgers, fries, sodas, candy, cakes, cookies and ice cream" and we start scratching our heads. What in the hell? So I started looking for exactly what the definition of "ultra processed foods" is. Basically, according to Harvard Health Publishing (Harvard Medical School), ultra processed foods include additives derived from foods (fats, sugars etc.) or non-food additives (colors or stabilizers, etc.). OK--but when does a merely "processed" food become "ultra processed?" We process food all the time just by cooking it. There isn't a recipe that doesn't call for some salt or sugar or some other food (milk, cream, flour). I think it comes down to whether you can cook the same food yourself with readily available ingredients. Our general rule is: as few ingredients as possible and none that are unpronounceable or which we have no idea of the function. And at our ages we aren't so worried about dementia or Alzheimers.

What could possibly go wrong? Just another step in the militarization of civilian police forces and another example of bringing foreign battlefields home.

And then there was this "OH, S**T" moment from Fox Business. It led me to a google search to find out where in this country rice is grown and found that four areas produce our rice. I can condense those to two: California's Sacramento Valley, and the stretch from the Gulf of Mexico (Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana) north through Arkansas and Missouri. Guess what? All are under drought threat.

Another "OH, S**T moment on the TV news just now. The jury came back with a guilty judgement on all  charges for the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation. I so hope this is only the beginning of the end of the Former Guy.

December 5

 First Monday in December.  Chilly but not as cold as over the weekend. Supposed to be dry for the next couple of days and then some rain. No snow predicted for the next ten days or so.

As I read this story on CNN it struck a memory chord for me. I vaguely remembered a similar story from about ten years ago from California. I quickly found this account on Wikipedia of the California attack. Though the California company (PG&E) was able to quickly reroute power distribution to minimize disruptions for customers it did cost the company $15 million in direct costs to replace and repair equipment and another $100 million over three years to upgrade security. No one was ever arrested. The new incident was much more effective in terms of the numbers of people whose power has been interrupted because the company didn't have the option of rerouting power from nearby power stations. No estimates on the cost of the damage yet and no idea of who committed the crime. NBC posted a more extensive story with a couple of interesting points not carried by CNN. First, the conviction earlier this year of three men who pled guilty to terrorism charges for conspiring to take out power infrastructure. Second, that right wing extremists have long been interested in disrupting the electric grid. The California and North Carolina attacks were physical assaults but, in 2015, Ted Koppel wrote a book, Lights Out, which explored the real possibility that a cyber attack could do the same from a greater distance.

December 3

 Cold and not likely to warm up out of the 20s today. We don't have any trips outside the house planned for the next week so the weather won't inconvenience us. Mom has already finished cooking dinner: fried cabbage with apples, short ribs, and butternut squash.

Ahhh! Joy! A judge in Arizona has ruled in favor of Maricopa County against Kari Lake and sanctioned her for her baseless assertions in court about election fraud. Another election denier, Mark Fincham, has also been sanctioned. It is about time someone held these liars accountable.

Evidently Mike Lindell isn't doing so well in court either. A judge has thrown out his attempt to subpoena records from a county in Michigan. Lindell is desperately trying to find anything that will derail the defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems has filed against him. I look forward to the day these idiots learn that sometimes they have to tell the truth.

A few amusing tidbits I won't link to: The newly elected Lt. Governor of Georgia said he went in to vote but walked out without checking either name because he couldn't want either candidate (in other words "neither Walker nor Warnock), another voter said that he didn't approve of Walker and Warnock was a good man but he voted for Walker (meaning you would vote for a shitty faux-Republican over an honorable Democrat???), another insisted he was voting for Walker because "the insanity had to stop" without explaining what insanity he meant.

December 1-2

 The calendar page has been turned and 2022 is 11/12 over. The year hasn't been as bad as the last two but also much like the last two. COVID is still here. The store shelves are still emptier than I can remember though we have usually found what we wanted and needed. We have simply continued a practice established early in the pandemic and bought multiples of our essentials. We still don't go out to eat as much as we did before the pandemic and aren't planning to go back to our pre-pandemic  pattern. Too many of our favorite restaurants either folded and didn't come back, hiked their prices beyond what we are willing to pay, or changed their menu to the point we don't enjoy the food as much. But we were slowing up on eating out before 2020 because we simply found it difficult to get our stomachs around the amount of food and didn't really want to bring the left overs home. We still follow the pattern set well before the pandemic of shopping early and avoiding crowds. After our shopping trip Tuesday we figure we won't have to do any major shopping until after New Years. So far we have been able to handle the increased prices though the inflation is worrying.

************************************************************************

I have seen a couple of headlines on this experiment. I am not surprised that it appears to be successful. Once upon a long time ago I worked at a firm that had a 4-day week and I loved it. I disliked a couple of things about that particular arrangement: we were paid by the hour with no adjustment for 32 hour week as opposed to 40 hour week and we got no sick pay which meant an even bigger hit if you were too sick to work. To really work the hourly pay should have been adjusted 20% higher and adequate sick pay should have been provided. The experiment did adjust the pay so most employees wanted to give up the four-day week and, since productivity increased by a large percentage, no companies plan to return to the five day schedule.

Oh, my--another day and another loss in court for The Former Guy. Unless his legal team appeals and the Supreme Court agrees to hear the appeal (not likely) the Special Master in the Mar-a-lago documents case will be dismissed. The appeals court also took the judge to task for inserting herself into the case in the first place as well as for the order. Hee hee.

One of the commentators on this morning's shows said he really wanted the Republican Party to go back to being truly 'conservative" by which he meant having actually policies dealing with the economy, taxes and other such matters. The current Republican Party can't run on its policies because it has none. Remember when Mitch McConnell told a reporter who asked what the Republicans would do if they won back both house of Congress? His response was "wait and see." I also would like them to go back to expressed policies. And if they did have policies on the economy they would also have to deal with the effects of their policies on people--real people who probably aren't rich, white, male, or (kinda) Christian. Wouldn't that be a switch.

November 29, 30

 Well, we are two days from December.

So--another day and another cryptocurrency firm files for bankruptcy. 

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We are now one day from December. Some people already have their lights up and the stores have had Christmas merchandise up since Halloween. The seasonal ads touting all the junk people can spend their money on are all over the TV. So are the adds for Medicare Advantage plans. At least three times the same ad was played back to back to back. Yeah, three times in a row. We have become increasingly irritated by seeing the same ad either back to back or twice within the same commercial block.  I am getting to hate being sold to.

My reading and commenting was interrupted because Mom thought it would be a good idea to do our shopping yesterday. The supermarket where we do our usual shopping sends out some coupons that are actually useful targeting products we normally use. We didn't have much on our shopping list but used the coupons and took advantage of the sales for things we would use soon anyway. They had a nice sale on boneless, skinless chicken breasts at about half the regular price (or what has become regular price). I have to get them packaged for the freezer today. We also got some cabbage for a couple of favorite recipes. They also had turkey breasts. We haven't bought whole turkey for a long time because it is way too much for just Mom and me.

Blockfi was the crypto company I mentioned yesterday. I read early today that the company has filed law suits against FXT for deceptive business practices. Interesting note though: one short story mentioned that Blockfi has ties to mainstream finance companies which would send some tremors through out that industry.

November 24

 Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all have a good holiday. For some years I have seen articles about achieving a "Work/life balance" or "work/family balance." Usually, I have read (some) and had a very familiar feeling: they didn't seem to know anything about the lives of people at my level of the economy--not quite the bottom. I just finished Robert Reich's Thanksgiving post and it is worth a read. I am glad he was able to make a choice in balancing his family and work he loved. He writes about people who love their work more than their family, love their family more than their work, or those who love both intensely. That's nice but most people I know don't love their but can't leave it or cut back on it because they have to provide for the family they do love. Worse all too often the work they do don't love doesn't even provide an adequate living for the family. 

Gizmodo provides the current "Oh, S$#t" moment. Add the Rio Verde Foothills community to the list of communities facing water crises.

I am not as ungrateful and curmudgeonly as you might think. We do have a lot to be grateful for. We are in reasonably good health. We live in an area that has pretty much escaped the weather disasters so many other places have experienced. The heat wasn't much more or longer than usual though we are grateful for the air-conditioning that made it bearable. We have been able to afford all of the food we need (and some treats we didn't but at our age who cares?) We could afford the gas to get us to and from where ever we had to go and our rent is still affordable for us. Hope we can say the same next Thanksgiving.

November 22

Sunny again today and should be a bit warmer. The snow is gone even from the north sides of the houses.

Oh, happy day. The Former Guy's Supreme Court decided the Senate can have his tax returns and other financial documents. They have been trying since 2019 to get the records to look into possible violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

A major rail worker's union rejected the recently negotiated contract which puts the whole thing in jeopardy. I have seen a large number of articles on the collapse of the agreement and its potential for causing economic damage but I really had to search to find out what caused the rejection. I think I remember the news stories ballyhooed the proposals for increased wages and hefty bonuses. What wasn't addressed were the working conditions and "quality of life" proposals the unions demanded. Obviously money doesn't buy everything.

November 11

Sunny but cool after a cold night. The snow on the southern sides of the houses but not on the northern side.

The elections aren't really over yet. We do know that the Democrats won the Senate with 50 + the Vice President to the Republican 49. One seat is still open with the runoff in Georgia scheduled for the 6th (I think) of December. The Republicans have won the House but by how much is still not known. The count last I heard was 219 Republicans to 212 for the Democrats with about 4 seats undecided. Both margins are very thin. But that isn't stopping Kevin McCarthy from acting like his leadership role has been decided. It hasn't. Several Republicans have said they won't vote for him--period. He has promised to kick Omar, Swalwell and Schiff off their committee. He may or may not get the opportunity. Tit for tat is so petty. 

November 18

 We finally got snow that stuck but not all that much and certainly not the 3+feet around Buffalo, N.Y. According to the weather forecasts we will have cold and snow through Monday and then will have more seasonal temperatures for the rest of the week.

We had medical appointments yesterday and today. And today, after meeting with Mom's new GP, we went shopping. Partly we had a list of thing we had run out of and then, considering the increasing food prices and the situation in the world generally, we decided to bulk up our pantry a bit. We had used our stash down for the last almost year but reversed course considering everything going on. All the prices are higher, sometimes much higher. We don't expect them to come down any time soon. Isn't it interesting that none of the Republicans are talking about inflation anymore. Instead it is all about investigating for any imaginary reason anyone with the name "Biden." 

Nancy Pelosi gracefully announced her intention to not run for a leadership position in her party. She will remain a member of the house representing her San Francisco district. What was totally graceless and spiteful was the Republican response. Most couldn't even be bothered to attend. Few applauded any part of her speech. And as soon as she finished they held a press conference promising to investigate everyone who opposed them, including Nancy Pelosi. The Former Guy isn't the only one imagining themselves to be "victimized."

The Behavioral Scientist has a good article on the difficulties trying to change societies and, although a primary focus is on changes that may affect our environmental footprint, can be applied to any major crisis. The author brings in the responses to 9/11 and to the various big oil spills as examples. I liked the discussion of two primary blocks to change: faith in market capitalism and faith in technological change.

I have one hope for the political situation over the next two years: Perhaps any attempts at impeachment of anyone will fail because there are half a dozen sane Republicans who will vote against. I can't imagine any Democrats would go along so handful of Republicans voting "no" would sink such crap.

November 16

Cold and cloudy. The snow didn't even stick around long enough to become a memory. The Weather Channel was talking about heavy snow for the southern shores of the Great Lakes and for the Finger Lakes area of New York thanks to the lake effect. They are talking about snow falls in feet not inches. We'll see.

Well, The Former Guy finally made his "big announcement." I don't know what time it was supposed to be on. I don't think the channels we watch carried it at all though they were all mentioning it this morning. At one point the commenter said that even Sean Hannity broke away from the ramblings. We now have non-stop election season.

I guess winter has decided to slip in. We are getting snow now with a brisk west wind. I don't think any will accumulate yet.

I wonder how soon TFG will have to foot his own legal bills. The RNC Chair McDaniels said the day before the election that if he did run they couldn't do that. She also said that on the day of the election. Will they actually cut him off.

The last time we went shopping we were stunned by some of the prices for what we bought. I wonder what those prices will be when we shop on Friday. Hopefully they will be nothing like some of those described here. 

John Michael Greer on Ecosophia has a post on education which makes points similar to those I have made over the last several years. The education industry was designed to turn out obedient, punctual, and sober workers for the factories. It wasn't designed to teach critical thinking or to encourage questioning of anything. He talks about reading and how children are ready to learn to read at different times. I had difficulty with reading when we started in 1st grade. Finally Mom got mad and taught me phonics which made the teachers mad. She wasn't a teacher and didn't have a college education so she wasn't qualified to teach me anything. Mom was polite, so she didn't give them the middle finger salute they deserved, and went on doing what she had been doing. I never looked back and became a voracious reader. Even today, in my 70s, I read around 200 books a year. That is considerably less than when I was a history grad student.

An interesting notion: charging a hefty tax on water intensive crops exported to other countries. The article does a nice job of covering some of the obvious problems with the scheme. I have another question: shouldn't information be considered as a "crop" considering how much water is used by the server farms in the west? And the author is absolutely right in wondering how in the world you can get a handle on the amount of water a given export requires. This site gives the water burden various foods require and Stanford University says each computer chip requires 10 gallons of water.

November 15

 Cold but sunny yesterday. As far as I can see (at 4:45am and well before the sun is up) we haven't had any snow either. Temperature is, at the moment, 32F and not expected to break 40F.

The news this morning provided a detail about The Former Guy's new court filing against the January 6 Committee and it was hilarious. The argument presented simply says that just because TFG claims certain documents he stole and moved to Mar-a-lago are "personal" they are and should be returned. Sounds a lot like Tricky Dick's argument that "because the President does it it is legal." I believe that went down in flames 50 years ago. For those who too young to remember or haven't read enough unredacted history that was President Richard M. Nixon who received a "get out of jail" card in the form of a pardon from President Gerald Ford who thought the nation should move on from Watergate and heal. I was of two minds on the question of the pardon when it was issued and as time has passed I am leaning more toward the conclusion that it was a mistake. We basically let Nixon off the legal hook for his alleged crimes and the wound only festered to give us TFG and the current mess.

Robert Reich has written a blog expressing a notion I have been thinking over the last couple of weeks: Elon Musk bought Twitter to destroy it. I can't believe a guy who is supposedly so smart couldn't foresee the result that would come when the famous blue check went on sale. Or that, given his disdain for curbing the violence and rabid lying on line, that political hate, misogyny, and violence would spike. But notice: Reich makes a connection to the FTX meltdown and Peter Thiel's attempt to purchase two senatorial seats (one failed and one succeeded.) I guess if you are big enough and/or rich enough you can cause all kinds of pain for people lower on the economic/power food chains than you and get away with it.

According to the U.N., sometime today the world's population will reach 8 billion. The article gives a lot more detail. However, I looked at the historical pattern wondering when we might expect 9 billion and found that the last few cycles of adding 1 billion (11 to 13 years) we can expect to reach that figure by 2035 and might reach 10 billion by 2050. Also note that the last ten years have had numerous wars and civil conflicts, at least two serious economic downturns, one serious disease pandemic and an "epidemic" of drug suicides often called "deaths of despair and world wide natural disasters. But that hasn't done much to curtail the growth of the growth of the human population.

Update: we have snow but nothing much is sticking. Intermittent high winds.

November 14

Here we are at half past November. The cold overnight temperatures have shriveled the top leaves of my hibiscus plants. The rose is still doing ok but I expect it will go to sleep soon. If it warms up I will sweep the remaining leaves off the pavement on the patio. I have a few seeds I want to think about ordering for the spring. My main question is whether I go more for transplants or more for seeds. I noticed higher, often much higher, prices for the seed packets. I expect that the transplants will also be much higher. Many of the plants I might grow are perennials in my zone but whether they can survive on my patio in containers is another question. We'll see what happens.

The post mortems on the election continue and they are as self serving as ever. Rick Scott moaned that they would have won if their pesky voters had just turned up and voted like good little robots. He never asks WHY they didn't. What about the Republican messaging failed to resonate? Was it the fact they had no real program of what they wanted to do if they were returned to office? Mitch McConnell told a reporter who asked to wait and they would reveal that "after we win." Was it that so many of the more extreme position on abortion post-Dobbs came from Republicans? They thought that the heat over the Supremes assholery had passed because women simply couldn't hold a grudge. Well, boys (and it is mostly boys), we can and we have votes and know how to use them. Was it the constant complaints that a past election considered to be the most fair, open and accurate in history (2020) being corrupt and that the one that hadn't happen yet (2022) all delivered without ANY proof at all?

I had another thought after hearing that two election deniers, one who lost big and one who is trailing with votes yet to be counted) have walked their rhetoric back. The one conceded and supported the integrity of the election he lost. The other is softening her claims of corruption in the counting. Question: when were they lying? Were they simply spouting election conspiracy screeds they didn't really believe because they hoped for political advantage? Are they now reversing course because they see advantage to that? What do they really believe? How can anyone trust them?

OMG!!! The latest Democrat to win in Washington State, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, just said what I said yesterday concerning the electoral map. Rural Democrats are an endangered species because the Party has not paid any attention to the needs of rural voters. She addressed those issues and won.

November 13

 Really chilly this morning but the prophesied snow hasn't materialized yet. They have moved it to Monday and Tuesday. Thankfully we don't have to go anywhere until the end of the coming week.

For the morning laugh--I found this Onion story. No explanation needed.

I keep hearing talking heads telling me that the economy is doing just fine but stories like this one make me question that. Actually these stories make me ask how much of our economic growth of the last ten years was a mirage.

The maps of the election results again show a problem with our politics I have noticed for several election cycles. The Democratic Party has its strength in cities while the Republican Party is strongest in the more rural areas. That fact has led to  two presidential elections since 2000 (George W. in 2000 and The Former Guy in 2016) beening won by candidates who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College. I voiced that observation that shortly after TFG won and one of my male relatives asked why should a vote in Wyoming count for less than a vote in California. I asked why should 100k votes in Wyoming count for more that 1million in California. But the map with blue islands in a sea of red means that the needs of rural people aren't being met or even addressed by the Democratic Party proposals. The question the politicos of both parties have to answer is how they develop programs that appeal to both groups.

We have seen repeated stories about drought and heat in our west along with the depletion of rivers and reservoirs across the country. This story about the current conditions in the Aral Sea area should, perhaps, be a cautionary tale for us.

We are being treated to the spectacle of the Republican Party cannibalizing its own. The fingers are most often pointing at TFG himself. There seems to be a brewing rebellion among Republicans against McCarthy and some, timid, agitation against McConnell who, at best, will remain Minority Leader. However the Rude Pundit has spread the blame around in this post with his usual profanity streaming rant. His basic assessment, stripped of the profanity which I did enjoy, is the blame goes from the rotting head alway down to the flipping tails (like "Dr." Oz) and all too many who should have been defeated, like Indiana's own Todd Young and Michigan's Ron Johnson, were re-elected. Now we have to deal with the aftermath and a very good question was asked by one of the interviewees on a news program: what will all those who expected and felt entitled to win will do now that they have lost? The s---storm may continue for a good while longer.

November 12

Overcast again this morning but the weather forecast indicates we won't clear off. We are also heading into a colder than normal stretch with possible snow. I guess I got the patio swept and plants mulched just in time. I am never ready for two things: time change and snow. And I can't do anything about either.

Just saw an interesting piece on the news this morning where the head of the Michigan GOP offers a spot on analysis of the election that delivered most of the offices to Democrats. The GOP offered up extreme candidates who turned off their usual donors. That seems to be appropriate for so many of the Republican candidates this year. Those who tied themselves to The Former Guy, trumpeted the Great Lie, and espoused extreme positions lost for the most part. I really hope the results foretell a more balanced approach and willingness to negotiate and compromise. 

Kevin McCarthy has been interrupted in his measurement of the drapes in the Speaker's office by a building rebellion among members of his conference. He wanted to have a quick election, perhaps before all the results are in, but the rebels want it delayed until after they know who will actually be in their conference and have a chance to talk to leadership candidates to find out what they might want to do.

Anyone thinking about "investing" in cryptocurrencies should read this article before they do. I have never seen the attraction of crypto. And now the third big crypto company, in the last 6 months, has filed for bankruptcy. I wonder how well "investors" have fared in these proceedings. I put those words in quotes because I can't see the difference between crypto "investors" and those who pull the handle of the one armed bandits in the casinos.

Oh, goodness!! The nannies strike again. The Daily Mail reports that some scientists say that foods like donuts, pizza and chips should be classified as drugs. Supposedly they are as "addictive" as nicotine. I keep wondering when the "experts" and the politicians will learn the lessons of Prohibition and marijuana. To quote Ken Burns (in his miniseries Prohibition) the bans created a "nation of scofflaws." 

The same could be said of the screeching voices wanting to ban abortion, contraception, same sex marriage and same sex sex. Clarence Thomas, in his concurrence in the Dobbs decision) suggested revisiting those issues. Of course the one decision he didn't flag was the Loving v Virginia which legalized multi-racial marriages (that would have hit to close to his house.) All were argued on the same Constitutional grounds. 

I am not at all surprised by this N.Y. Times story. Masks do work to slow the spread of COVID. It is also interesting that the schools did not track the kinds of masks or whether the masks were worn correctly. The schools were in poor neighborhoods, were old with out dated ventilation systems and crowded class rooms. But those schools showed much less transmission than newer schools in wealthier neighborhoods. Way back when Indiana eliminated mask mandates and left the matter to individuals and various business and other establishments. The local hospitals kept the mask mandates and, when we asked why, we were told that they noticed not only that they had fewer COVID cases but fewer colds and flu as well. We wear our masks in the hospitals because it is simply polite but not most other places because we avoid crowds and did so before COVID.

November 11

 Well I did get out yesterday to sweep up leaves on the patio. I put a fair portion around the two hibiscus, the two lavender and the rose. I also covered the pots with bee balm and asiatic lilies with them. The rest I swept out the gate to the lawn the landlords take care of. I also moved the lilies and bee balm closer to the north side of the patio where they will get sunlight sooner next spring. I also turned the bird bath upside down to protect the cement from freezing damage when we finally get snow and freezing temps.

The Former Guy provided a good laugh yesterday. He claimed that Ron DeSantis has been lucky because he became governor (because, of course, of TFG's support) of a state that has so much sunshine the governor didn't have much to do. Guess he never heard of Ian or Nicole. I don't care much for DeSantis but he has been getting high marks for handling the disaster Ian left.

The skies were gloomy for the morning but have cleared now. It is still a bit warm for this time of the year. And the geese are still here and feeding before they head further south. When we first moved here 20 years ago they would already have moved on.

I think it is amusing how so many of the talking heads are ecstatic over the "drop" in the inflation rate. It only dropped from about 8.3% to about 7.7%. At my level of the economy all I can say is "big hairy deal." What we pay for food, gas, electricity etc. are still going up. 

November 10

 Good Morning. The temperature is much more fall like. The leaves are nearly done and down. I have been thinking for several days that I need to get out and sweep up the leaves to mulch the plants I hope will survive the winter. We have had a series of medical appointments lately and a new family physician after several years of disappointments--doctors who don't take Medicare only patients, doctors not taking new patients at all, doctors who didn't listen, and those with whom Mom didn't connect. Those took time and energy. I did go out and pull the remains of the impatiens and dahlias.

The election results aren't fully in yet. Even so some things are fairly clear: the Republicans have a very narrow majority in the House and may (may) get a narrow majority in the Senate but may have another two years of an evenly divided chamber with VP Harris as the tie breaker. Many of the Big-Lie boosters and those who pledged they would invalidate election results (past, present, and future) they disagreed with lost. Three states put the protection of abortion in their constitutions and another refused to put an abortion ban in their's. And so many of the pro-Dobbs candidates lost. The "Red wave" turned into a "Red puddle" for which I am very glad. 

It will be interesting to see what kind of a pretzel spineless Kevin McCarthy will have to twist himself into to get the Speakership (if he gets it at all.) And at least one Senator has come out opposing Mitch McConnell's leadership so that might turn into a donnybrook. There is also a question of how the Democratic leadership will shake out. It might be a good time for Pelosi and the other octogenarians in leadership to step aside and take the role of elder advisors to a younger crop.

This is an interesting development out of the election: Three states have passed constitutional amendments banning "involuntary servitude" (a.k.a., slavery) as a punishment for crime. I didn't realize that the 13th Amendment to the Constitution banned involuntary servitude EXCEPT as punishment for convicted criminals. That is how the infamous "chain-gangs" (e.g., Cool Hand Luke) which provided cheap labor for states and private individuals (a.k.a., large landowners). Evidently four other states have passed similar bans previously. Maybe by the 200th anniversary of the 13th Amendment most, if not all, of the states will ban servitude entirely.

The one thing I draw from the election is that neither party got an endorsement from the electorate. In other words, few people feel any great love for either party because neither is really meeting our needs. And I don't think voters are impressed by screeching about a problem but offering no realistic plan for dealing with it. Or even a bit of humility in noting that, perhaps, the problem did not originate with either party or entirely from within our own country. A big example of that is the "discussion" of inflation. So many of the economic problems are beyond the ability of politicians to ameliorate.

Although I think calling this election over is a bit premature since Georgia has a senatorial run off, and Arizona and Nevada are still counting. However, I agree with almost all of what Infidel753 writes here.