July 31

 It will be a busy day with several errands to do. Thankfully the temperatures have moderated a bit and it should be dry. That last means I will how to water today. July ends today and many people will be glad to see it go although August and September are also hot months.

BBC put up this photo spread showing the effects of the weather world wide.

Bill Astore's comments on "A Famine of Peace" are right on the money. However, it reminds me of the old saying that "it take two to make peace but only one to start a war."

July 29

We had a wild thunderstorm overnight. I will do a more thorough check of the gardens but I think they all survived the high winds and heavy rain. On the good side: another day I don't have to water anything. I will definitely be looking at better ways to support any trellises I put in next year. The arrangement I have now survived by it is listing a bit.

I found this article on an attempt to reestablish forest in Ireland that disappeared over 1000 years ago.

Doomberg posted a story about the claims made in the last few days in an as yet unpublished and not-peer-reviewed paper from South Korean researchers that they have achieved superconductivity at ambient temperatures and pressure. Doomberg's article is justifiably skeptical and so are other sources I found on line. As noted, such claims have appeared at regular intervals for the last 100 years along with other fantastic claims in other fields of science. Most don't pan out for a variety of reasons. 

July 27

Good Afternoon on a sunny (for the most part) and very warm day. I watered plants very early this morning. We are staying in as much as possible. The next electric bill will be a big one with how often the air conditioner has been running.

The news this morning featured two stories of at least a mild interest. First, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell started to make some remarks to reporters and--froze in mid sentence. I haven't heard anything firm about the cause. His aids and fellow senators helped him out and he seemed to have recovered when talking to reporters later. Second, Diane Feinstein had something more than a senior moment when she had to be prompted to say "yes" on one bill, and then was reminded she wanted to vote in favor of another and, after being prompted by an aid, had to correct her vote. Charlie Sykes started his morning piece on The Bulwark with comments on the American Gerontocracy. I saw the title of a Washington Post article from a couple of years ago which claimed that the senate at that time was the oldest ever (I didn't read because it is behind a pay wall.) However the 2024 election shakes out I think the decade marked by The Former Guy and Joe Biden will probably be the last hurrah for the Baby Boom generation simply because the population of Boomers hit its high in the mid 1990s and has been on the decline since. That decline is only accelerating and will continue from now on. The concern over a ruling gerontocracy will fade as that happens.

July 26

Waiting to see if I will have to water plants on the patio today. It is still way too early to see anything outside.

I have described myself as a "medical minimalist" and this kind of story reinforces that attitude. When Ozempic and other such drugs first came out I remember the ads which touted them for helping controlling diabetes and slyly suggesting they "may help you lose weight." I predicted it wouldn't be long before they would be prescribed for weight loss and I was right. Now we are seeing the downside of those bright promises.

I spent a lot of my life in one college/university as student, grad student, teaching/research assistant, or adjunct. I don't think I would want to go that route in the current climate. This piece by Dan Moynihan at Can We Still Govern shows why. Texas and Florida are at the forefront of this trend but other states and individual institutions are also following similar tactics. About 25 years ago when I was desperate for work and a paycheck I decided NOT to apply for substitute teaching positions with the local school system because these kinds of issues were heating. I didn't want to deal with that and the situations then were tame by comparison to what we see today.

So it continues: the conman who once occupied the White House continues to run out on his obligations. I Hope the mayor of Erie, Pennsylvania can get him to pay up this time. And maybe for the last time as well.

July 24

Last week of the month. Next Monday will end July. But the heat will continue into August according to the weather predictions. We had rain yesterday so I won't water the gardens.

Every time I think the idiots in politics can't possibly be more idiotic they become more idiotic. Example: Mike Pence telling an interviewer that The Former Guy shouldn't be criminally charged because he (Pence) doesn't see that he (TFG) has done nothing criminal. Clue to Mr. Former Vice President: it isn't your job to decide what is criminal. And in spite of your contention that TFG's fate should be "left to voters" in the next election cycle, it isn't up to voters either. It is up to prosecutors to charge, or not, according to their reading of the law and then to convince the jurors, or not, that they are right and find the person charged guilty (or not.) THAT is how things are supposed to work.

July 23

We had a heavy rain very early this morning followed by bright sun now. So far the temperatures haven been too oppressive--at least not my the standards of what has happen elsewhere. I rearranged the plants on the patio to give some a bit more sun. That gave me some ideas for planting next year. I want to arrange some more pots but that will be a project for the end of the season.

Denise Donaldson has a nice article about the 303 Creative case. She argues from the same place most of the criticism has come: that the decision of the Supreme Court has given (some) people a license to discriminate. I will make a couple of other points. First, there still has been no clear definition of what a "public accommodation" is. It was rather clear when the issue was the policy of hotels and restaurants to refuse service to blacks, Jews, and anyone else the management/owners didn't want to serve. Second, the woman who was at the center of the case had not been harmed in any way by being forced to accept orders from gay couples for an online wedding site. No one had asked for such service and she didn't even have a business set up for that. The Supreme Court totally ignored the issue of standing which the owner of 303 Creative didn't have. Third, others, some who have businesses that are better fits for "public accommodation" definitions, have already taken the decision as permission to, often rudely, discriminate. Where should the lines be drawn? Donaldson makes a good point in discussing her own work. But there is a big difference between the custom orders, which Donaldson and 303 Creative accepted, and other "services" offered by a hairdresser who posted a very rude sign refusing service to gay people. 

July 21 ,22

 Another week gone. And another month almost gone.

Charlie Sykes has a good summary of the political clown shit show this last week. Calling it a clown show 1) impugns clown, and 2) doesn't really express how totally noxious politics has become. I checked a bit more int RFK Jr. and am unimpressed. I think labeling his pronouncement that COVID was designed to be more lethal for white and black populations while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese as racist was a bit much. It is hugely anti-scientific since he didn't produce any evidence. He has a long history of being anti-vaccines, even the vaccines we have long used to at least mitigate childhood diseases. I much prefer to read critics who produce evidence. Also he was supposed to be testifying on censorship issues. However, I can't see where he has been either silenced or censored. Ignored perhaps because his ideas didn't resonate with those in positions of influence who don't think they merit attention. RepTHUGlicans seem to equate a dismissal of assertions that have no evidence as censorship. If you disagree you are censoring them or silencing them. They expect you to take all their most absurd assertions seriously instead of laughing them off the stage.

22*********************************************************************

 I have seen a couple of other stories on this ridiculous response to FOR PROFIT insurance companies leaving the Florida market to minimize risks from losses due to increasingly damaging weather events and law suits. I emphasized the "for profit" because that is the main reason public companies exist: to make a profit. Now that it is becoming a problem for the politicians, the actions are "woke" or "ESG". 

July 20

It looks cloudy but it is also early yet so I don't know if we have any possibility of rain.

Jeff Jackson describes how the defense authorization bill went in the house--it wasn't pretty. Petty yes; pretty no.

Observation on our politicians: If they had been in the Congress that debated breaking from Great Britain, we would still be a British colony.

July 19

Warm already and it is only a few minutes after 9a.m. here. I checked the plants and will water tomorrow.

The news has reported for the last week Moscow's suspension of the "grain deal" that ensured Ukrainian grain could be shipped out via the Black Sea. A lot of hand wringing over the possible food shortages especially in Africa and the Middle East. However, with the continuing heat wave in Europe they are expecting a deep reduction in grain harvests this fall.

Dave Pollard wrote a post that encapsulates things I have been thinking for some time. Big problems require concerted action which requires that people agree on what needs to be done. If the problems are global that kind of cooperation has to exist on a global scale. Such an agreement hasn't existed, doesn't exist, and won't in the future. For all the reasons Pollard noted. Other writers I read regularly noted the difference between "problems" and "predicaments." Problems have solutions; predicaments don't. Climate change is a predicament to which we have to adapt.

July 16, 17, 18

 Good Morning all.

Some early morning reading:

From CNN a bit of history and remembrance.

The summer heat is setting records all over. This is Italy. And Ekathimerini.com posted this heat map for Greece. Al Jazeera covers the summer conditions around the world: floods, heat, rivers drying up.

Heather Cox Richardson provides an article on the Draft Riots in New York City one hundred years ago. It is a perfect example of "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Though we don't have the draft any more the economic and racial/social problems remain along with politicians who seek to gain advantage by fanning the flames.

17***********************************************************************

The weather people expect that temperatures in Death Valley will challenge the records. The news last night featured idiots who are visiting Death Valley to "see what it feels like." Perhaps they would like to visit Pennsylvania and see what it feels like to drown.

18***********************************************************************

It might be sunny today. Hard to tell this early especially since the winds are moving the smoke from Canada down here. I don't know how much I will get read or how much I can comment on because our internet company is working on their system. It keeps going in and out and in again.

Heather Cox Richardson posted an essay this morning that goes along with what I have been hearing on the news. All of the discussion comes on heels of The Former (and I hope not Future) Guy declaring what he plans for his next stint in the White House. As Mom and I talked about it this morning I made the observation that the only people who actually remember a time that such plans came into being are now her age (in her 90s). There is a term for what The Florida Retiree wants to build: fascism. However, there is a factor not often mentioned and it showed in the poll I linked to a couple of days ago which shows a deep feeling in the country that democracy isn't working--especially that the democratic system isn't addressing their needs. Ideas have a life cycle. They don't die but the do become old and go dormant until conditions allow them to be resuscitated.

Maya Bodnick decided to test how well ChatGPT-4 would score on essay questions professors and teaching assistants might assign for take home tests. Result: very well indeed. The question is how will AI impact education?

Andrew Cockburn has an intriguing subtitle on his article this morning: The military industrial complex is not actually designed to fight wars. He makes a pretty good case and adds to my skepticism that Pentagon really needs a budget closing in on $1trillion.

July 15

 Half past a warm July. We just got the electric bill and it reflects that fact. It always goes up a bit in summer and winter. It rained last night. The weather reports predicted a mixed day today. BBC reports that Europe is suffering from its own heat wave with temperatures in some areas hitting triple digits and some tourist attractions and commercial outlets ordered closed during the worst of the daily heat.

Yesterday the Screen Actors Guild joined the Writers Guild in strike. I noticed that a big sticking point involves AI and streaming which both threaten acting and writing jobs. As I listened to some of the reporting I was thinking back to when I was researching comic books for a dissertation I never finished. I found one title (American Flagg) from the mid 1980s that had an interesting premise: in 2031 the world power centers had relocated to Mars and controlled society through commercial centers called Plexes whose police force was the Plexus Rangers. The main character was a new deputy ranger, Ruben Flagg. He was the star of an action series whose role was taken over by what we today would call AI/CGI leaving him with out work. The latest Indiana Jones movie uses AI to recreate the young Harrison Ford for a large part of the movie. So many of the movies, and not just Sci-fi and fantasy genres, involve CGI. It hasn't been all that long since we had CGI dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and now we have fantastic battle scenes in Midway.

David Brian has a post today that deals both with our political conundrums and the Hollywood strike and asks, a bit down the page, "do we choose progress?" The problems is he never defines what "progress" is? Is it progress when people lose livelihoods in a society that expects them to bear all of the costs of finding a new one? Is adopting technology simply because it is new with no thought of the social and economic consequences progress? The term "progress" involves a movement from one place or condition to another but doesn't in and of itself include "better." So to judge "progress" we have to define what is better and for whom. Right now progress has diminished to mean "it makes money for someone."

 Although my ancestors came to this country long before Infidel753's did and 3/8 of them probably came across the Behring land bridge during the last ice age, I can sympathize with his assessment of summer. I don't think any human was adapted by genetics for the summers we have experienced with greater frequency over the last couple of decades.

AP News has a long article dissecting a new poll which reveals a lot of Americans are rather disillusioned about democracy. The article does a good job of showing how people feel that the political system isn't delivering on what people feel is important. I didn't see any reference to a problem I have been watching for the last thirty years: more and more people are unwilling to accept the results of elections. The most egregious example comes from the last couple of election cycles. The Former Guy insisted from his first campaign that the only way he would lose is if the election was rigged. He followed up with his loss with a concerted campaign to overturn the election by any means at hand. His acolytes are still maintaining that the election wasn't fair. The will acknowledge that Biden is president but not that he won. 

July 13, 14

 We'll see what I can get done today. Probably not much because I'm feeling lazy.

Al Jazeera posted this article ten days ago.

Farmer's Insurance has decided to get out of the business in Florida although a couple of subsidiaries will still offer policies. I heard a report on the TV last night and the reporter said the State was considering suing the company and criticizing it for being "woke." I laughed. The politicians might think that climate change is a "woke hoax" but the insurance industry isn't the only one trying to map out their risks with the rising number of sever storms, heat events, and fires. Michael Klare wrote about the Pentagon's efforts to study the issue in All Hell Breaks Loose. When big business and the military are thinking about things perhaps we should take notice.

14**********************************************************************

Sunny so far today. I will check the gardens to see if the plants need water. After the last couple of days I hope not. I should also clip some back a bit. 

Following the reporting on the New England flooding and the heat in the South and South West. The rebuilding in the east will be a massive effort  and parts of the west are looking at records falling in both the temperatures and in the length of days over 100.

In the "What's Old Is New Again," dueling assessments of Aspartame hit the news this norming. Yes, it is still around. The WHO (I think it was) has issued a caution that it might cause cancer while the FDA hedged its bets by saying it should be safe if consumers don't consume excessive amounts of it. I thought we went through this about 25 years ago. We don't use artificial sweeteners and since we cook most of our meals from scratch and most of the other foods use different sweeteners.

Tree Hugger answers a question we have asked for several years: what has happened to tomatoes? The don't have the flavor. They also have developed a straw-like core that is inedible. We don't buy as many or eat as many any more and we miss them. We have known for sometime that breeders have selected for every trait imaginable but not for either flavor or nutrition they used to. Growers wanted fruit that ripened all at the same time, would survive the trip to the supermarket, and looked enticingly pretty. I guess taste didn't matter except for old biddies like us.

Naked Capitalism posted this story parts of which I have read before. Another good reason to keep at least some of your money in cash under the mattress.

July 12

 It is overcast and wet this morning. That suits me just fine. I don't have to worry about watering.

I saw a national weather forecast this morning. The meteorologist noted heavy rain/flooding in the northeast, possible thunderstorm/hail in the midwest, and scorching heat in the southwest. Guess the titles on the top of my nook list: Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge and The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.

July 11

 Almost half past July already. The Weather Channel says we will have some sun this morning and the possibility of thunder showers in the afternoon. They predict temps in the 80s. So I just went out and harvested the lemon balm (oh how delicious the smell) and sage. The weather can do whatever because until those cuttings are dry and ground I won't be cutting any more.

There isn't much news to talk about--same old, same old.

Jeff Jackson described his day when the proposed $890billion defense bill was to be voted out of the House Armed Services Committee. He writes that some 800 amendments were offered by members most of which were not really serious attempts to improve the bill--merely efforts to grandstand or offer "poison pills" that would sink the bill. Most were shot down but will probably be proposed during the floor vote--which will be another circus for the clowns to show off.

Every time a new technology is introduced people line up in pro and con sides: those who see it as ushering in the apocalypse and those who think it will solve all our problems. Marc Andreessen at The Free Press is on the AI as savior team. Though he acknowledges that both sides of the technology argument are, often, both right as to the advantages and to the negative effects. He clearly thinks the advantages outweigh the negative effects. But Michael Klar sees the other side especially with respect to military applications. I am skeptical on both sides. I tried three different PDAs before I realized that they simply don't work for me. I can write any of the appointments, contacts, or notes down on paper far more easily that imputing the data on a PDA. I also don't use such apps on my computers. I resisted e-books for some time but finally yielded to that trend because my physical library was exceeding the available space. (I have a hard time getting rid of books.) But I still prefer the physical. My major skepticism about the military applications involves how often such technology and techniques seem to migrate to the civilian in our age of militarized police. 

July 10

Early yet so it isn't evident what the weather might be like. The Weather Channel predicts that it will be sunny and in the mid 80s. I fixed up a cream of chicken soup with veggies yesterday--from scratch. It didn't take long and tasted way better than any commercially prepared soup out there. We still have enough for today as well. Most of our cooking nowadays is from scratch.

This CNN story is interesting. There are a lot of good reasons to make public transit systems free to riders. But as usual it comes down to who pays for what. But no one realizes that all of us pay one way or another. Pay taxes for public transit or pay with increased pollution, congestion, all the costs of owning and operating your car. Remember the old commercial for an auto repair chain: pay me now or pay me later.

Just a thought: all the shuffling around about whether Ukraine should be admitted to NATO is ignoring something. Putin has cast the conflict as a "poor little Russia" vs. THE WEST. In other words, we are involved in a war that we don't want to call a war--at least for us. But we are supplying more and more lethal aid to Ukraine. We are doing everyone but sending our own soldiers. Perhaps it is time to admit Ukraine and let Putin decide if he wants to continue the farce when NATO would be obligated to fully support Ukraine.

The sunny prediction appears to be the accurate one. I wanted to harvest some of the herbs for dehydrating but instead watered everything, added soil to a couple of the pots, and rigged a bit of a fence to keep the alyssum  from overgrowing the hibiscus. If we still have good weather tomorrow I will harvest those herbs.

I wonder what is happening with our internet connection. It has gone out three times today. That has been happening more frequently lately.

Anthropocene Magazine has an interesting article describing a shift in attitudes toward climate change. The first phase described was the notion that what those who advocated that climate change was real was to find the right arguments, the right facts and they could convince the deniers that the coming crisis was real. I never thought that would happen. It reminded me of the recurring refrain of social improvement scheomes that all we had to do was educate people and suddenly they would buy into the middle class live and values. That never happened on a large scale either. Denialism has shifted to doomerism. Woe is us but we can't do anything. It is almost a "eat, drink, and be merry because it is all over anyway. Apocalypse fatigue is passing into fatalism. But there seem to be signs of climate change stoicism. Maybe that is a good thing. Stoics accept what is real and roll with it; finding ways of living with it. 

July 9

Didn't do much yesterday--not even reading. I know what I should do today but how much I will do we'll see.  Right now I will see what I find in the news and e-mail.

I found this on BBC this morning which says nothing good about the treatment of workers in today's corporate environment. But just reflects the trajectory of the last few decades. I remember applying for jobs and never even receiving an acknowledgement that the company got it. I remember interviewing for the job and never hearing anything else from the company. At least I didn't have the experience of a company bringing in foreign workers and expecting me to train my own replacement. I remember following the advice of counselors who said you should send "thank you" notes after an interview and follow up by phone until I realized that such courtesies were not reciprocated.

Le Monde has an article about Italy's "demographic winter." Italy isn't the only country facing a diminishing population. I have seen stories about most of the European countries, Russia, Japan, China, and the U.S. But no one has any good programs to encourage people to have children and a lot of conditions/policies that discourage it.

The Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action inspired David Kaiser to write a three part series on the decision, the affirming arguments and the dissenting arguments. He posted his third part today and it is a devastating indictment of higher education. 

July 7

About ready to get my second cup of coffee and I am about ready to get started on my e-mail. The weather should be rather nice today and I have a number of little tasks I would like to get done outside. But I also have some things I need to do in the kitchen so we'll see what I finish.

I found this interesting BBC article about an Australian welfare scandal. Why interesting, you ask? A couple of reasons. First, the culprit wasn't a cheating individual who scammed the system. It was the government itself. The previous Conservative administration adopted an "algorithm" which was incorrect and misidentified a large number of recipients as having received benefits they weren't entitled to. As you can imagine the results were cruel and devastating. The inquiry was a scathing indictment of the Morrison administration which is accused of misleading the cabinet and bypassing the legislature to impose it. They have had to restore the funds they clawed back from bank accounts without any warning to the recipients and facing lawsuits seeking damages. Second, is a cautionary tale because something similar can happen here. The media has carried sporadic similar stories about our government demanding repayment from Social Security recipients, sometimes decades after the payments were made, or to their survivors. Third, it brings into question how much we should trust the government. I just saw a poll on the morning news/conversation show which asked if the respondents agreed with the premise that the government was not meeting the needs of the country. All self-identified political groups (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents) agreed at about a 60% level. That is not good.

Bill Astore has a piece this morning that reinforces a question I have had for some time: what the hell is going? Cluster bombs? Really? Have we really reached the "destroy the village to save it" stage? I thought that was Russia's position from the beginning and flattening the whole country while killing its population would suit him just fine. I just didn't know where we stood.

July 5, 6

 Good morning. Thankfully the actual 4th of July is over though I wonder how many people around here will continue their fireworks celebrations for another week.

I wondered when the (NOT)Supreme Court issued its decision on the affirmative action case and carved out certain exceptions which included "legacy" admissions how long it would be before those exceptions were challenged. I read that such a challenge has already been started and Joyce Vance has an interesting article on it here.

I was just thinking as I was reading a couple of stories about recent judicial rulings how "normal" and expected it is that the Judge is named along with the name of the President who nominated them to the bench. I can't remember that happening before The Former Guy railed against "Obama judges" when the decision was unfavorable to him. Now what ever the decision the judge and his/her ruling is applauded or castigated depending on who appointed them and our feelings about that President.

6************************************************************************

Following the ruling of that Louisiana judge that prohibits, very broadly, Federal communication, especially by the FBI and Health and Human Services, and the social media companies for the purposes of  

the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech"

I always thought the complaints on the right were self-serving crap--for the most part. I have read on a couple of the blog sites I follow about the social media companies shutting down advertising and/or access mostly on the accusation of "misinformation" over COVID. But, from the descriptions the Federal agencies were not the villain. Advertisers and other groups applied the pressure. Heather Cox Richardson has a post which covers a lot of the issues involved. Several aspects bother me. First, that a judge would accept an accusation without evidence reminds me too much of Supreme Court cases without a plaintiff with standing or a plaintiff who has suffered no harm but fears future harm. Note that the complaining parties aren't the media companies but Republican Attorneys General who went forum shopping. Second, the breadth of the order which seems to ignore the fact that there are some serious matters, often criminal matters, the agencies cited should discuss with thee companies. Third, when should misinformation, disinformation, or outright lies be targeted. I keep coming back to the fact that the Constitution promises a "free" press--not a fair press, not a truthful press, not an unbiased press. I find a lot of information on line. Some of it is obviously bogus. Some of it has a clear bias. Some of it is accurate. It is up to me to decide which bucket anything I find belongs in. Social media is like every other kind of media (newspapers, magazines, books, radio, movies, TV, and the internet) have been a mixed bag of false claims, propaganda, truth etc. Censorship is almost never a good thing.

I have written about the return of child labor before. Steve Fraser at Tomdispatch.com has covered the history pretty well. I had a couple of thoughts on the issue that he didn't include. The movement to eliminate or severely curtail child labor laws has risen as our society's faith in education has declined. Fraser mentioned the DeVos family spearheading the movement. If the name is ringing a faint bell in your mind, it should. During The Former Guy's administration Betsy DeVos was the Secretary of Education and pushed vigorously for charter schools (read "for profit") and for vouchers paying tax money directly to parents who wanted to send their kids to such schools but couldn't foot the bill. I vaguely remember a story about one she had a stake in which collapsed in a messy financial scandal. Fraser didn't mention that along with flat wages for working class and the lower levels of the middle class, unaffordable medical care, and falling life expectancy, the test scores for American children have fallen for several decades. The recent dismal test results have been blamed on the pandemic and school closures but that was merely the continuing of a long standing trend. 

July 4

Another nice sunny day so--

Happy 4th to you all

 I don't have anything much planned. I will be very glad after all the people who want to shoot off fire works decide that the holiday week has passed. All of the holidays are at least a week long and if there is enough commercial interest it might even extend to a month or two. I get so tired of all the ads. But worse are all of the calls Mom is getting trying to sell her on either a more expensive Medicare Advantage plan or changing provider. There have been days when she got half a dozen calls from people who simply don't understand "NO."

I read that Elon Musk planned to put limits on how many tweets users could down load each day. I didn't pay much attention because I don't use Twitter. In fact, I stopped following a couple of posters who shifted to the platform. Dave Karpf does use Twitter and has a few interesting observations. I wondered when Musk bought Twitter after he won a bidding war by offering twice what the company was worth, tried to renege on the agreement to reduce the price by half but was forced to complete the deal when Twitter sued and won in court. Since then I suspected, and still suspect, he wants to drive the company into bankruptcy for spite and wounded pride.

Doomberg posted this article today in its entirety which is unusual. Most of its articles are only half available with the last half available to free subscribers. I read a post a few days ago where Farage described the fact that his bank was closing his accounts.

July 2

Cloudy, I think, and we did have rain overnight. One good thing is that the weather has discouraged at least some of the people who like to fire off fireworks. Looks like it will be a quiet Sunday.

Saw this piece by Joyce Vance at her Civil Discourse site that covers the latest (NOT)Supreme Court decisions.

Almost 200 years ago the Supreme Court at that time declared that Georgia laws allowing for the seizure of Cherokee land on which gold might be found was unConstitutional because it violated Federal treaties with the tribe. President Andrew Jackson supposedly said "John Marshal (Chief Justice) has rendered his decision; now let him enforce it." Maybe he said it; maybe he didn't. Whatever--the Federal Government and the state of Georgia simply ignored it. And so began the Trail of Tears. Why bring up "ancient" history? Because while listening all of the verbiage slung at the decisions this week (and still this morning) we wondered what would happen if everyone simply ignored the rulings? The last time the court lined up against popular opinion was during FDR's administration when they invalidated a number of his legislative acts to combat the depression. Roosevelt ran against the court (among others)and won a landslide victory and the court "read the election results." They didn't invalidate any other such laws. Today the Supreme Court is held in about the same low esteem as Congress.

Bill Astore put up another good post on his substack. They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. However, what happens in politics rarely stays in any confined area. The so-called War on Terror has indeed come home. It seems our country has fighting wars against ideas that can't be confined to a readily identified person or group for the last half of the 20th century (communism) and for the last 22 years (terror). Conveniently, both ideas could be, and were, expanded to include who ever the people in power wanted to demonize. And we still have the anonymous idiots who will persecute whoever they demonize.

Jay Kuo poses some very good questions on his substack concerning the Supreme Court but hasn't proposed any answers. 

July 1

Welcome to July and the first day of the last half of 2023. That will be interesting if it follows the patterns of the first half. Right now it is raining. Another day I won't have to water my plants. I already have the dinner in the oven so I can relax. My get-up-and-go can go where ever it wants. At least we won't have any more bombs from the Supreme Court. I will say several of the "conservative" justices have a very selective reading of history. They twisted themselves into irrational pretzels trying to say that while affirmative action was necessary fifty or sixty years ago we are so beyond racial prejudice we can dispense with measures to cure it. And two have decided that it it is perfectly alright for them to accept gifts worth more than the generous salary the United States gives them while hobnobbing with billionaires while also deciding that all of us "little people" have to drown under student loans. It is perfectly good for the PPP loans to be forgiven for the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene but not those of us saddled with a level of debt we will die before it is paid off. And how many of the cases involved parties who would have been thrown out of court for lack of standing--like the web designer who never had a same-sex couple of wanting a wedding page but wanted preemptive decision that she could discriminate against such a couple because she is a CHRISTIAN. Sort of. Or the Secretary of State of Missouri who insisted he was protecting the interests of the state's student loan agency against those student loan deadbeats even though that agency never joined the case.

Don Moynihan at Can We Still Govern has a good take on the "judicial pretzeling" the current court has engaged in. If Chief Justice Roberts is really worried about the reputation of the court and the low esteem it is currently held in he should look at his fellow "conservative" justices.