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.

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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.