March 3, 4, 5

 Busy morning already. It was a shopping day and I had a fairly long list. But that is done and most of the items are inside and put away. I only have a bag of bird seed, 4 gallons of water, a gallon of white vinegar, and a case of canned cat food to bring in. I will do that later if my back will stop hurting or tomorrow if not. The weather forecast says that some nasty weather is coming with a possible mix of all forms of precipitation.

04************************************************

We have solid rain today. The temperatures are still in the 40s and are expected to stay above freezing so the grass should start greening. The trees are starting to show leaf buds. I still have some items from yesterday's shopping to bring in but I am not in any hurry because none of them will be hurt where they are.

Trump is going to give a speech to a joint session of Congress. I plan to ignore it. The news tomorrow will have the high (low?) lights and I will get the gist then without having to spend time listening to his whining and bellicosity.

05************************************************

Another rainy day but it let up enough for me to get the items I had left in the car into the house. That was enough heavy lifting. I am now taking a break. I put a couple of rows on another lap/baby blanket just started. I get bored and I grab some of what is in my stash and start another project. The other crochet project still on the hook is almost finished I have a few more rows and the edging. I haven't started a doily project again. I tried a couple of "vintage" patterns but haven't figured out the author's crochet dialect yet. I still have the two embroidery pieces on hoops. Right now my get up and go waved bye-bye a while ago.

I was thinking of changing my mind and watching Trump's address with my finger hovering over the mute button but at one point the commentators observed that Vance and Johnson had bent their microphones down as Vance told Johnson he didn't see how anyone could stand up and deliver a 90-minute speech. It was already 8:30 so I turned the boob tube off and continued reading. As it turned out the speech lasted 100 minutes and, from the accounts I saw this morning, it met my expectations, whining and bellicosity with a dash of grandiose claims of "accomplishments."

I was mildly amused by an episode of news reader cluelessness yesterday. I think it was on CNBC and immediately after the segment I switched the channel. The female talking head wondered why the tariffs were causing such a furor because, of course, we would have time before they really hit. My first thought was she obviously didn't realize how perishable fruits and vegetables are or that we get a large part of our summer favorites from Mexico. Our supermarkets have to be resupplied at least a couple of times a week. Before the end of THIS week we will be feeling the increasing prices. I thought that just before their economist expert mention these facts of our life to her. My allergy to stupidity is getting worse.

Joyce Vance has, evidently, had a higher tolerance for BS than I and watched some of THE SPEECH. Here are the two things she took away from it.

So Trump proposes a "Crypto Strategic Reserve" for government "investment." Another lame brained notion from the stable genius who tanked a couple of casinos, whose Trump themed products (steaks, water, vodka, etc.) failed, whose Trump University was adjudicated a fraud for which he paid a hefty fine. I have a standard rule when I, infrequently, play games on Facebook: I never pay real money for digital goods. The idea of exchanging cash (which is a bit more substantial than blips in the ether) for digital (which is simply blips in the ether. A few of the bloggers I read rail against "fiat" currency (which is really backed only by our belief in the "full faith and credit of the U.S. government" since we went off the gold standard long ago). They usually talk about keeping some kind of silver and/or gold. My problem: "hard" currency is only valuable IF you can exchange it for something you can wear, eat, or use. My problem with the notion of digital currencies is not the it is entirely ephemeral but how easily it can disappear. I have read of several instances over the last few years of gangs, some associated with adversarial states, breaking into banking systems and disappearing the contents, both crypto and fiat. It is very hard to trace the thefts and much of the funds haven't been recovered. Establishing a "Crypto Strategic Reserve" strikes me as NOT strategic, possibly corrupt (how much will be in $Trump family "coins," and how much will be in the "currencies" whose founders have paid him in some way. Check out this article on POPULATION INFORMATION.

CROOKS & LIARS has an excellent cartoon showing our leaders since 1980.

March 2

 Sunny today and I hope it will be warm enough to melt the bit of snow we got over the last couple of days. It looked bad for a couple of rounds but didn't really amount to much. I am planning what I will plant this year and how I will rearrange the containers. We have some of our DVDs playing. I have heard more than I wanted to of the "news." It isn't new for the most part and it is alternately infuriating and depressing. I can read from multiple sources without hearing the politicians pontificate.

It will be interesting to see how Europe reacts to the changed circumstances. For years (decades?) our leaders, their leaders, and pundits of all stripes have referred to the U.S. as the "indispensable" country. Our government was involved in all the decisions and actions since the end of WWII. Now other countries and blocks have to think seriously about whether the U.S. is truly indispensable. they have to consider whether the promises our government makes can be relied on from one administration to the next. If those premises are no longer true U.S. influence will decline. Good? Bad? Who knows?

March 1

 Welcome to March. The winds have been doing their usual March thing: howling. I stepped out yesterday to get the mail and the wind almost tore the door out of my hand. Temperatures nearly hit 60F yesterday but this morning we have snow on the ground--perhaps a quarter of an inch so far. Not much of a surprise because the Weather Channel predicted "more normal" temperatures today before another warm up.

Did anyone REALLY enjoy the S-show in the Oval Office yesterday? I was disgusted by it. Grown men acting like five year old bullies--and I DON'T mean Zelenskyy! A number of thoughts cycled through my mind. First, the scene from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA where Starbuck, in the brig, asks Lee Adama if everyone "kissed your ass to your satisfaction?" The second was the scene at the end of BRAVEHEART where the English forces are lined up facing the Scots expecting to receive the Scottish surrender and one tells the other "I hope you washed your arse because it's about to be kissed by a king." Instead the Scottish king throws William Wallace's sword into the space between the armies and the Scots attack. It is obvious to me that Trump and Vance expected Zelenskyy to well, thoroughly, and abjectly kiss their butts and were surprised he didn't. However, another thought also came up. I read a lot of history among other subjects. Back just before 1453 the emperor and his court at Constantinople saw the writing on the wall as the city was being surrounded by a massive Muslim army. They wrote to the Pope asking for aid. Instead of giving help to fellow Christians the Pope demanded total submission to the Roman Church and their acceptance of Papal Supremacy. The Byzantines wrote back: Better the turban of the Sultan than the tiara of the Pope. The city was sacked, much of its population slaughtered and it remains an Islamic city along with the rest of Anatolia (modern day Türkiye). In case you are wondering, we aren't turning on the TV. We don't have our morning soccer and tomorrow we won't have the morning rugby games. I don't want to see any of the "news" today. We are doing a LORD OF THE RINGS marathon instead,

Stray thought: Biden, unfortunately, paved the way for Trump when he decided to run for a second term. His continuing mental decline was evident and he looked as physically frail as one would expect of someone in his early 80s. Trump's decline from 2015 to2020 and then 2024 was evident to anyone looking but it was easily dismissed by his sycophants who pointed at Biden. Without Biden on stage the decline, mentally and physically, is evident but the Republicans are intent on securing their own power by clinging to Trump's coat tails. Zelenskyy was right when he said that Trump lives in an information bubble which tells him what he wants to hear but his followers also live in that bubble. Many writers have said the we now live in a post-truth world.

Another stray though: some of the headlines I have scanned say that Ukraine's fate is even more tenuous with the Oval Office meltdown but even if the meeting ended on a more "positive note" and the minerals agreement it's situation would not have been more secure. Trump was intent on "getting something for nothing." He wanted those mineral concessions but without giving Zelenskyy any assurance of U.S. aid if Putin attacked again. Trump repeatedly dismissed the possibility that Putin would violate any agreement claiming that the presence of Americans working the mines in Ukraine would deter him. He was incensed that Zelenskyy, with his back against the wall, would refuse.

Last stray thought: isn't it sad that our foreign relations have been reduced to who is kissing Trump's ass and whose ass Trump is kissing.