March 4

 First thing I saw this morning was a post whose author said that gas prices had gone up 0.50/gal overnight. I thought I would check our prices locally and saw the prices here range from 3.80 to 3.90/gal. That is 0.30-0.40 higher than we paid two days ago.

Then I found this. What I have read so far today Ukraine and Russia dodged a bullet--the reactor is intact and no radiation has leaked. However, the reactor supplied power to about a quarter of the country and the Russians can now cut that off. I don't chalk up the result (the fact that the reactor was taken intact and relatively undamaged) to precision given how many of their missiles have hit civilian targets though they claim they are not deliberately targeting civilians.

I love the first two posters leading off this Treehuggers post. The first is the WWII original and the second a modern remake. I have read that Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski have introduced a bill to ban imports of Russian oil. I don't know where it will go but I agree even though it might make our budget a good bit tighter. I always am deeply suspicious of depending on something someone else can hold over me. I remember the problems women in my bootcamp company had when we suffered a company punishment couldn't smoke because the "smoking lamp" was off. I remember in "A" school when the woman in charge of the women in the class threatened to take us to her "barber" if we didn't follow regulations on our hair styles. I immediately cut mine off in a pixie cut even shorter than hers. It make no sense to me that, as a society, we don't produce what we absolutely need within our own borders. As a tit for tat the Russians have prohibited the export of rocket engines our space program uses.

I just had another thought--officially banning Russian oil might not mean that much because quite a few major western oil companies are divesting of their investments in Russian oil.