Good morning. We still have lake effect coming in spurts. It is hard to tell how much we actually have because the wind is blowing it all over. I don't expect it to stay around long because the the daytime highs should be above freezing. And some of the precipitation will shift to rain. 

Well the Winter Olympic Games has ended until 2030. I dread the Summer Olympics of 2028 because Trump will still be President and will try to make it all about him.

Stray Thought: while watching the extravaganza of the closing ceremonies I remembered when we got the stories and medal counts on our nightly news (back when both the national and foreign news occupied HALF AN HOUR every night). It was always after the fact not simultaneous. But over the last forty years things have changed. The broadcast networks and cable developed the ability to sent reports by satellite and they found that exclusive rights to broadcast the games. USA and NBC devoted extensive amounts of time to showing the games sometimes time-delayed but often in "realtime." If you were a night owl sports fan you could stay up and watch. And the countries hosting the games have made the ceremonies a spectacle. Have we lost something in this?

Second Stray Thought: I have heard a lot of frothing at the mouth about the SAVE Act and decided to read the actual bill yesterday. Much of the verbal diarrhea is overblown as to what it will actually do. To start off the SAVE bill (it isn't an act yet) requires that voters present proof of citizenship and specifies IDs that many people already have which would qualify: Military ID issued by the Federal Government, Tribal ID issued by Tribal governments, Passports issued by the Federal Government, and Real IDs (also called Secure IDs) issued by states in accordance with the requirements of the Federal regulations. I have described my own efforts to get a Real ID drivers' license and finally did so after much effort and a consultation with a lawyer (which thankfully was free). 

Given what is in the text (at the moment) I wondered what the problem is in getting one and why was the SAVE bill even necessary. I can think of a couple of problems. I have been trying to find a birth certificate for my paternal grandmother born in 1905 and paternal grandfather born in 1896. Both were born in rural areas where such records are often haphazard and many were born at home. I read about such problems when the Real ID law was passed in 2005. I also wondered what state compliance looked like since many states objected to the law because it put most of the cost of the law fell on them. All states officially comply but many people object on various grounds including feelings of Federal overreach, cost, and the effort to collect the necessary documents. Though my state has required the process for new licenses and non-drivers' state id's they do allow work arounds in case the documentation is not available. So the SAVE bill won't really have any effect on non-citizens voting (which has been shown negligible in several studies) and I have to ask why bother besides stroking Trumps already over large ego.

Robert Reich posts a political cartoon every week with a speech bubble his readers can fill in. He posts the best suggestions the next Sunday. This new cartoon showed the Supreme Court justices on their high bench looking at the tiny Trump throwing a fit way below and readers have to supply what one of them is saying. I can't enter because I am not a paying reader but my first thought  was "PLEASE!! SOMEONE FIND HIS BINKY!!" For those not familiar with that word binky=pacifier.

Feb 21

 Cloudy and cooler as expected. The next seven days should be in the 30s and 40s with some kind of precipitation possible for most of the time. We don't have any appointments next week though I plan to take the rent check to the rental office in person. After about two months largely housebound--not even going out to the mail box several days so I wouldn't have to negotiate the ice--getting out feels really nice. We aren't, in modern times, used to being immobilized by weather. But it might become more familiar in the near future.

BLOOD IN THE MACHINE posted this article about areas where Flock cameras have been destroyed. I've watched over the last half century as we have become a surveilled society. It seems as though in the argument between "law and order" and "freedom" the first group wins. So much of this has progressed not quite in the dark but in governmental bodies that few of us pay much attention to. But when it does come to into the open people really don't like it. Robert Heinlein's character Lazarus Long said "In a government of the people, for the people--don't tell the people" or ignore the people or refuse to let them speak. That only works for so long.

February 19, 20

 Rainy and cloudy but I looked out on the patio and didn't see any snow. Yeah!! The temperature today is predicted to go into the middle 50s but it should crash back to the more normal mid 30s tomorrow. I puttered around a bit with another afghan using worsted weight yarns I still have on hand. I pulled out my corded hooks to do some double hook Tunisian work. I got to the point where I really didn't want to do more crochet I am working on with size 10 thread. And I didn't want to bring out any of my three embroidery projects on hoops now. That happens every now and then. Luckily I didn't need any new materials to help me break my needlework blahs

A piece on a news/talk show last night reported that the administration has instructed DHS to "investigate" NATURALIZED CITIZENS for "voter fraud." For ever since Trump, during his first campaign for the Presidency, claimed that masses of "illegal aliens" were voting they have been trying to find examples of activity. They haven't found any significant numbers--about 20 examples nationwide last I heard which is negligible. So now they want to enlarge the target group hoping to find evidence of such fraud. I have heard more stories of Republicans committing election fraud.

However the story brought up a Stray Thought: a couple of decades ago I read an account of how IBM enabled the Nazi regime to trace Germans descended from Jews who converted and assimilated. They then removed the citizenship from those Germans and rounded them up with their Jewish neighbors. What will the administration do if (when?) they don't find the fraud they want to find? Trace the lineage and keep looking?

20*********************************************

Hard rain and high winds today. And much colder temperatures. I am sitting in front of my computer with one cat sprawled on my lap impeding my ability to type and the other one sitting behind the screen looking at me accusing me because she thinks I should already have given her the second breakfast of the day. I will probably relent because I need my second cup of coffee.

So much of the news I see skim and pass over. There isn't a damned thing I can do about it so--"que sera, sera" as the old song says. We did watch the thrilling gold medal ice hockey match yesterday between Canada and the U.S. which the U.S. won in sudden death overtime.

First interesting bit I found this morning was this piece on CROOKS&LIARS. I had never heard of psychrobacter bacteria so I immediately looked up the term and found that it refers to strains of bacteria that live in cold temperatures. They might be simply cold tolerant or they may actually thrive best at cold temperatures. The recently discovered strain was RESISTANT TO 10 MODERN ANTIBIOTICS. That is surprising since it was found in a 5000 year old layer of ice from a Romanian ice cave. Supposedly that bacteria hadn't been exposed to those antibiotics so the resistance is entirely innate. We have already had episodes of anthrax being released from frozen reindeer carcass in tundra that thawed. This episode in Russia infected more animals and some people. It doesn't take much imagination to picture the effects of an unknown disease arising from something like the psychrobacter.

Stray thought: the Federal government spent a couple of decades intensely forcing state governments to adopt the "Secure ID" drivers' licenses. To get one you had to document your identity. I have already described our problems with that since both my mother and I changed our names when we married (Mom twice.) We had to show birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers for each stage. AND WE SHOW THAT ID WHEN WE VOTE. I have read the accounts of the SAVE act and I have to ask why should we need another ID that basically wants the same document chain? Why should we need ANOTHER F***ING ID?

February 18

 Another sunny day with above "normal" temperatures. We had rain last night and temperatures above freezing so almost all of the snow remaining on the patio and the shadowed areas is gone. Just checked the Weather wondering about how they think the next week or so will be and got diverted by two stories. First indicates wildfire season has already started with blazes going in western Oklahoma, and in Texas and Kansas. The second covers a 30-car crash on southbound I-25 near Pueblo. High winds and a dust cloud contributed to the mess which included several semi trucks. We expect high 50s and 60s today and tomorrow then ten days of more normal temps in the 30s and 40s. Thankfully not much precipitation and that should be rain.

Stray thought as I was reading a short piece on CROOKS&LIARS which notes the the Pharma execs are faced with a problem they should have seen coming: with the shifting attitudes of the administration concerning vaccines and the latest refusal of the Food and Drug Administration to approve the latest Moderna mRNA vaccine their funding (public and private) is trying up. I saw the snippets of "news" which showed Governor Newsom of California reminding beleaguered parties that Trump only has 2 years 10 months left before he will be gone. Unfortunately, gone maybe but forgotten not at all. Much of what Trump and his minions are doing will linger far beyond 2029 when he is supposed to leave office. And even if he does leave, who will come after and how much of his wrecking ball policies will remain?

February 18

 Sunny again with predictions of temperatures in the 50s. We are two weeks away from meteorological Spring and a month away from astronomical Spring. I am sure the weather gods are teasing us as always. they will clobber us again I am sure. Oh, well, I will enjoy this while it is here. I decided to put my needlework off til this evening. I plan to work on the genealogy project and reading for the rest of the day. Also doing some planning about meals. Mom's appetite is getting somewhat chancy. One day she will reject something she has enjoyed before. Or complain that is it way too much. I have already told her that if a bird ate the amount she does it would starve to death. I am trying to work in several small snacks over the day. We'll see how things go.

Timothy Snyder has a new post titled "Consumptive Capitalism" that is very interesting considering our personal issues. (I say "our" because dealing with Mom's health is a joint project.) That title is the one on an article he reposts from Sara Silverstein dealing with the business of health care--the very expensive business. She starts with an account of tuberculosis or (as it was called in the 19th and early 20th century) consumption. Medical "science" of the day prescribed stays in sanatoria to "hopefully" arrest and cure the disease. Silverstein makes the case that what they were really selling was hope because there were no cures before modern antibiotics were discovered. Even now the programs a months long course of multiple antibiotics unless the bug is drug resistant where the treatment is more prolonged and complicated. Just looked up the costs of treatment and it ranges from about $20,000 for the standard 4 to 6 month treatment to more than $100K for a more complicated and longer course dealing with multiply drug resistant forms and more than $400K for the "extremely" multiply drug resistant bugs. It is still a very expensive prospect which few people can afford out of pocket. At the end she notes that the "wellness" industry nowadays exceeds $2trillion. I can well believe it considering the number of ads for various drugs, nutritional aids, and devices we see every day. As Silverstein wrote the so-called Make America Healthy Again program pushed by Bobby K. Jr is a pipe dream.

Heather Cox Richardson put up another of her LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN essays which brush on the theme of health and weird weather (which touches on the theme of climate change which on writers has called "weather weirding"). She also ties it into Valentine's Day because on Valentine's Day in 1884 Theodore Roosevelt experienced what worst day of his life when both his wife of three years died giving birth to their daughter Alice and his mother died of typhoid. The younger Mrs. Roosevelt died of (they think) Bright's disease a kidney condition often the lingering result of a strep infection. Both diseases were common diseases in the overcrowded cities of industrializing America and at a time when antibiotics were not yet available. The rich could die almost as easily as the poor just in more comfortable conditions. Roosevelt took his grief out west to a ranch he had purchased until the horrendous winter of 1886-7 killed off a huge number of free range cattle including half of Roosevelts. As a side note Richardson didn't mention was that winter ended traditional open range cattle ranching and boosted the market for barbed wire. Roosevelt himself went back east to make a name for himself in progressive politics, shedding the dismissive tag eastern politicians had given him (dude) and, eventually in 1901, succeeding the assassinated McKinley.

David Kaiser often writes an article worth reading. Today he writes about "The End of An Era." Often eras are often, provisionally, identified after the fact. I say provisionally because those eras are redefined as time passes. But I agree that the events he is talking are serious breaks from our recent past. I often cite Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series as perhaps the best fictional presentation of the inertia of history and how hard it is to change trajectory. I remember telling my students when I taught history in college "no great change of politics or culture happens from a single cause." 

I would question Kaiser's assertion that most Americans support the new Voter ID initiatives. It all depends on which measures of which proposals you are talking about. I also question the notion that such new Voter IDs are necessary. I remember what I went through to get the mandated Secure ID driver's license which states have been pretty much been bullied by the Federal Government to adopt. My first attempt was stymied because my current name, affirmed by the court decision in my divorce. is not my birth name. Part of the Save Act (which is still a proposed bill) demands that the names match. My mother has gone from maiden name to first married name to second married name. When I tried the second time to get the Secure Id driver's license it sailed through with no problem. I think someone far more forceful than I made a case that stuck for accepting the court establishment of name after divorce.

February 13

 Sunny today and the temperatures should be well over freezing. It is still cold enough overnight to leave frost on the roofs. Much of the snow pack on the parking slips is much reduced and I hope it will be gone by Monday when we have an appointment. For much of the last month the snow made it impossible for Mom to leave the house. She needs her walker but navigating through that mess was dangerous. Even a wheelchair, which she really doesn't need now, wouldn't have made any difference. Right now we are waiting for an Instacart order. It should arrive shortly.

In the interim I am going through my e-mail and listening/watching BBC. We have already seen the early news/commentary on a U.S. site. Evidently only two really significant stories were covered: the new announcement that the Minnesota ICE operation is over and its thugs will be withdrawn (according to Tom Homan), and no agreement has been reached on funding for Homeland Security so that part of the government will technically shut down. 

However, Homeland Security (and ICE) were given a massive infusion of cash in the last budget which made ICE the LARGEST "law enforcement" agency in the government--bigger than the FBI, SECRET SERVICE with other agencies thrown in combined. And Kristi Noem is sitting on billions of dollars that should have been distributed to various states as directed by the Congress.

Stray thought: listening to the news that the Administration has decided to reject the climate science that previous administrations used to control greenhouse gas emissions. As  you may know I have a magpie mind that skips from one thing to another and I thought of the law an early 20th century Indiana legislature passed to define the value of pi as 3. As most of us know the actual value is 3.14159+and unknown number of other digits. The law, even signed by the then governor, didn't make any difference in the mathematical fact or in the geometry math taught to students. Ignoring the science underlying the greenhouse effects won't change the facts.

While reading the segment on ICE leaving Minnesota (depends on how you define "leaving") I wondered where those 2300 ICE people (left in place after Homan "drew down" 700 thugs) would go. This article on CROOKS&LIARS draws on other news sources to detail leases ICE has signed for new concentration camps (I refuse to call them "detention centers which sound far more innocuous that the reality) sited near large cities. We have only heard about the areas where major local disapproval caused either ICE or local politicians to cancel the plans. Evidently others don't mind our incipient police state.

Another stray thought: I didn't see much of Pam Bondi's testimony before that Congressional Committee. What I did see reminded me of something I heard, maybe, forty years ago. Democrats believed government could work and tried to make it better (however you want to define "work" and "better") but Republicans don't think government can work and tried to limit it as much as possible (again depending on your definition of "work" and "limit"). Most of the problem with the definition of work is what you want to work toward, who you think should benefit from the work, and at what cost. Over the years the whole issue has become somewhat fuzzy for Democrats and the Republicans have been laser focused on, as one of their patron saints said, reducing the size of government to the point where it can be drowned in a bathtub. That says there is nothing positive that comes from government but that begs the question of "for whom." And it is increasingly clear that unless government actions is only valuable if it benefits the top 1% of the economic ladder. And benefit means increasing their wealth and influence.

February 11

 Oh my!! Almost half past February. I keep complaining how fast time seems to fly by but It just keeps speeding up. I spent yesterday transcribing by genealogy notes from Ancestry.com to my own files. I often don't see gaps or discrepancies as I go between files on Ancestry. Writing it out and putting it into my own summaries helps. So far Ancestry is the easiest for me to use of the programs I have tried. It is a bit odd that I have had a more difficult time finding information of my nearest relations that some of the more distant ones. Part of the problem is that we are a spread out family that over the years lost contact. I am probably the oldest my generation of the family and I found my childhood memories sometimes reliable. Mom is the only member of her generation left and sometimes her memory isn't reliable.

Just found this article by Robert Reich which describes the economy very well and why people aren't feeling good about it. For most of the last century economists have touted "productivity" which is defined as "output per worker." However, various business and finance people have discovered that they can boost "productivity" by cutting workers and pushing the work on those who remain. Yeah, they actually produce more per worker. Or, they can invest in automation which will allow them to, again, cut worker bodies creating the impression of higher productivity. Each strategy will increase GDP and may increase profits, though Rachel Bitecofer I saw recently indicates that companies can invest in expensive technology and yet not turn a profit. But that totally ignores the workers who are without jobs. We were always told not to worry about that because new, higher paying jobs would open up for them. That isn't always true. As we have found out.

Stray thought: my what a bunch of whiney babies some of the Republicans are. Now they want to "investigate" the Bad Bunny halftime show. As if they really don't have more important matters to deal with. But I guess having the vapors over an AMERICAN from Puerto Rico singing in Spanish is easier than dealing with those problems.

Second stray thought: I have a vague memory that I read someone once said that disasters make for bad law. Politicians have a tendency to over react and make vague and over broad laws which tend to be messy in practice. I remember thinking of that back in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when Homeland Security was established and agencies like FEMA were rolled up into it. Allegedly for efficiency. Instead FEMA has been neutered and made ineffectual. And under the current administration nothing runs efficiently--except the gutting of every program that helps those of us who are not part of the "Epstein class."

Another stray thought: those poor right wing snowflakes went spastic about Bad Bunny starting with his very polite sentiments about ICE but no one has mentioned Billie Eilish's comment which I though was absolutely right on point: "no one is illegal on STOLEN LAND."

Yet another stray thought: a number of commercials are so irritating that I mute them so I can more easily ignore them. We leave the TV on because it is Mom's main amusement. However, I had a slightly different reaction to the Homeland Security encomium to ICE declaring the men of ICE are loving fathers, little league coaches and valiant upholders of law and right. I mute it just like the other irritating commercials but in my mind I remember the Joseph Goebbels was also a loving father and when the Third Reich was in its very last moments gave his six young children morphine followed by cyanide before he and his wife took their own cyanide pills. You can be a loving father and still be a monster.

Bill Astore asks on his substack if Iran will be our next "forever war." I would argue we have never ended our Middle East/Central Asian forever war. We have just moved "assets" around to counter this or that perceived threat. We won't get out of these wars until we realize how bankrupt we are. And re-evaluate our ties to Israel.  I don't recommend cutting those ties but a deep examination of the relationship.