February 5, 6

 Overcast and cold--barely above 30F right now. The weather people say we may get a wintery mix of precipitation going to freezing rain by tomorrow morning. We don't have to go out until next week.

06***************************************************************************

Overcast and icy this morning. The mail box was covered in ice and a couple of spots on the sidewalk nearly sent me sprawling on ice I didn't see. Nearly because I don't move as fast as I once did and was able to regain my balance. I spent the usual couple of hours doing some needlework, making coffee, fixing breakfast and washing dishes. That punctuated by reading. I finished Madeleine Albright's HELL AND OTHER DESTINATIONS yesterday. It was a thoroughly enjoyable autobiography. Just started Henry Kissinger's THE WHITE HOUSE YEARS. I will read that in small bites over, probably, the next year--it is 1800+ pages including all of the notes, etc. at the end. I will put a couple of shorter books in as well.

Also I still have a long list of sites I normally read when the authors post. It is a bit shorter because I spend a bit of time purging some sites that either aren't interesting to me any more or aren't what I expected them to be. 

First off this morning I found Brian Merchant's "Government by Grok" on his BLOOD IN THE MACHINE site. I am not a great fan of automation or AI. I won't be using Chat or DeepSeek or any of those programs. And I am VERY skeptical of allowing Elon Musk to run rampant in the government systems. There is simply too much information that he should have access to. I don't like the thought that he can simply turn off systems and lock people out. Unfortunately, the rapid growth and adoption of AI and other systems is probably a tidal wave we can't avoid. All we can do I try to mitigate the harm or inconvenience it will cause.

The Trump/Netanyahu press conference amazed me with its lunacy and self-serving crap. To say that Trump's notion that the Palestinians should "be moved out" and then the U.S. could build a Riviera on the eastern Mediterranean is so ridiculous you would have to laugh it anyone but the addled President of the U.S. proposed it. Of course he insisted the he had talked to the Egyptians and Jordanians and they were enthusiastic. I heard that and wondered if someone had slipped Trump something mind altering in his Diet Coke. They have consistently and strenuously refused to allow more Palestinians into their countries just as Palestinians have strenuously rejected the notion of leaving in spite of the rubble surrounding them. And for Bibi to call that asinine suggestion an example of "thinking outside the box" is even more ridiculous. It is an old way various rulers have dealt with a rebellious or fractious population. Look up the Jewish Babylonian Exile. Or look at the Roman removal of Jews after putting down the 135 c.e. rebellion. I could go on but why? The media talking heads are saying he is walking that back some.

Stray thought: the news said that about 20k workers who were offered the "buy out" have opted to take it and the administration hopes that by tomorrow that number would reach 40k. I would guess that two groups of employees might be tempted (in spite of all of the questions about legality and who is offering the money). The first group would be older workers who are close to retirement and are don't want to put up with the crap dished out by DOGE. The second would be young workers who don't have a lot invested in the job/career yet and want to cut their losses. That is just a guess but that would follow from what happened in the wake of the Pandemic and recession.

Another stray thought: I remarked some time ago that the Donald Trump who campaigned for the presidency in 2016-17 was not the Donald Trump who campaigned in 2019-29 and certainly was not the Donald Trump who ran in 2024 and is now President. It is like watching an image fading over time. He has lost more than a few levels of physical vitality and mental acuity. The only attributes that have strengthened are his sense of victimhood and desire for retribution. And his disregard for Constitutional limits.