November 24

Good morning. It is overcast so the sun promised by the weather people over the weekend has failed to arrive. My thermometer on the fence says the temperature is just above 50F but it certainly doesn't feel like it. I just cleaned out four pots of dead plants and moved the two from the front door to the back. That was enough garden work for today. I have some more cleanup planned but it wait til tomorrow or whenever. I decided that I won't put any pots by the front door. Our landlords insist on keeping the pampas grass (I think that is what the crap is) and I am tired of trying to keep it from falling into my flowers. The news this morning was about the same as it was on Saturday (and on Friday and on Thursday... .)

Ugo Bardi at THE SENECA EFFECT writes about "Global Dumbing: the Consequences." I don't have much faith in IQ test results. I read a bit about how they were developed and Bardi is entirely correct in saying that they were developed for Western peoples. I would go farther: they were developed by White, Western European men for White Western European men and if you aren't in that group you often don't test well. I have read even more on exactly how that works. And there were very early evidence that the level of education was a better indicator of how well a person would test than the results of the test indicating how well anyone would do academically. Those tests showed an increase in "intelligence" across generations. Immigrants scored low but their children scored higher and the grandchildren scored higher yet. The children and grandchildren had higher levels of education as well.

COP30 is winding down with so little accomplished that some question whether another should be held. I heard one report which said that meeting was better attended by the fossil fuels industry than by diplomats and climate scientists.They made sure that any proposals that would affect business as usual for them was removed. The next COP will be in Turkey, if it is held at all.

Well, something did move this morning. The judge who was hearing the Comey and James motions for dismissal of the cases because Halligan was illegally appointed to the office of prosecutor. The motions to dismiss on the grounds of "vindictive and selective prosecution" are still alive.

Stray thought: just this morning on BBC they featured the story of a very young boy who is suffering from Hunter's Syndrome which causes progressive physical and mental deterioration leading to death in the teenage years. His family went to England for gene therapy which has been in development for a couple of decades and which appears to have been successful in arresting and even reversing the symptoms. The only sad thing in the story is that his older brother is also suffering for the same condition but is too old for the trial. But just now MSNow has a segment on Tatiana Schlossberg's new article detailing her struggles with cancer culminating in her new diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia and her doctors' futile efforts to find a treatment. The mRNA research might have yielded a cure for the same condition but not in time for her. But the funds for that research has been terminated by her cousin, RFK, Jr.

The CITIZENS UNITED decision conferring on corporations the rights to use their money to express their political opinions has unleashed a plague of money on our politics. Robert Reich details a way states might erase the effects of the decision though not the decision itself. Corporations are fictional persons formed in states according to state law. The state approves the corporation and can regulate what it can and cannot spend money on and could bar the corporation from spending in political causes. After all physical persons are barred from spending on certain things at certain times. I can't buy beer, wine, and liquor before noon on Sundays. You can't legally donate to terrorist or criminal organizations. Whether you can place a bet on line (or at all) is regulated by the state you live in. Evidently Montana is introducing an initiative to regulate corporate participation in politics. That would be an interesting situation if it passes.