November 15

 Cold but sunny yesterday. As far as I can see (at 4:45am and well before the sun is up) we haven't had any snow either. Temperature is, at the moment, 32F and not expected to break 40F.

The news this morning provided a detail about The Former Guy's new court filing against the January 6 Committee and it was hilarious. The argument presented simply says that just because TFG claims certain documents he stole and moved to Mar-a-lago are "personal" they are and should be returned. Sounds a lot like Tricky Dick's argument that "because the President does it it is legal." I believe that went down in flames 50 years ago. For those who too young to remember or haven't read enough unredacted history that was President Richard M. Nixon who received a "get out of jail" card in the form of a pardon from President Gerald Ford who thought the nation should move on from Watergate and heal. I was of two minds on the question of the pardon when it was issued and as time has passed I am leaning more toward the conclusion that it was a mistake. We basically let Nixon off the legal hook for his alleged crimes and the wound only festered to give us TFG and the current mess.

Robert Reich has written a blog expressing a notion I have been thinking over the last couple of weeks: Elon Musk bought Twitter to destroy it. I can't believe a guy who is supposedly so smart couldn't foresee the result that would come when the famous blue check went on sale. Or that, given his disdain for curbing the violence and rabid lying on line, that political hate, misogyny, and violence would spike. But notice: Reich makes a connection to the FTX meltdown and Peter Thiel's attempt to purchase two senatorial seats (one failed and one succeeded.) I guess if you are big enough and/or rich enough you can cause all kinds of pain for people lower on the economic/power food chains than you and get away with it.

According to the U.N., sometime today the world's population will reach 8 billion. The article gives a lot more detail. However, I looked at the historical pattern wondering when we might expect 9 billion and found that the last few cycles of adding 1 billion (11 to 13 years) we can expect to reach that figure by 2035 and might reach 10 billion by 2050. Also note that the last ten years have had numerous wars and civil conflicts, at least two serious economic downturns, one serious disease pandemic and an "epidemic" of drug suicides often called "deaths of despair and world wide natural disasters. But that hasn't done much to curtail the growth of the growth of the human population.

Update: we have snow but nothing much is sticking. Intermittent high winds.