March 1

 Welcome to meteorological spring. And a double whammy has hit Texas. The largest wildfire in their history that is only about 5% contained AND a winter storm that is dumping snow--some areas expecting up to 10 FEET. The California mountains are also getting huge amounts of snow. We have clouds but the temperature is high enough to give us rain--later today maybe.

Update: the Weather Channel has just reported (3:10 pm) that the Texas Smokehouse Creed fire is now the largest in U.S. HISTORY.

Epsilon Theory asks "Why We Don't Trust Each Other Anymore?" and has some interesting answers. One problem involves language: the words we use and how we perceive those words. The author notes one poll that when people were asked if we "should give the poor support" more than 70% agreed. But if the word support was changed to "welfare" the approval rate dropped into the 30s. It reminds me of the polls on the ACA. Asked about the ACA and people favored it; asked about "Obamacare" people rejected it even when they were benefitting from it. The two are the same thing. The author also goes into data and how people perceive it and misperceive it. Interesting read.

CNN put up this article today. The Biden Administration is going to investigate foreign parts designed for our "smart" cars, especially those made in China. They are worried that foreign adversaries can gather intelligence or use the connections to sabotage infrastructure such as the EV charging stations. However, the focus is going to be on all connected cars which use network connections for several functions.

Another episode in the Foreign Tourists Behaving Badly show.

CNN also had this piece on Japan's demographic woes. However, declining populations are evident in most countries with the exception of Africa where the populations are rising more slowly as the fertility rates are falling.

BBC featured a segment today on the growing global phenomenon of obesity. The report said that 1/8 of the world population is obese--in other words 1billion people. They didn't say why which is rather normal for stories about obesity when they aren't demonizing poor people. I can think of several reasons for the uptick. One, changes in where people live and what they do for a living. Not long ago the world population became 50+% urban. More and more people make a living in sedentary jobs. Two, the American diet has infiltrated most parts of the world as have U.S. food production companies with high levels of fats, artificial sugars, and high levels of various chemicals. Third, I suspect that the world population is getting older. In most of the industrialized world the number of people over 65 exceeds those under 25. As we get older our metabolisms slow down.

EuroNews has an article on the global increase in obesity which gives more details and cites The Lancet. I found the article a while after I saw the BBC piece.