August 8

 Errands yesterday. We had to straighten a mess with mom's prescription. The doctor's office said it was sent to the pharmacy and the pharmacy said they had not received it. Well, the nurse sent the order--to the wrong pharmacy. She resent it to the right one so we should get a call soon. Another irritation in an increasingly internet connected. It was much easier when the doctor gave you a paper prescription you took to the pharmacy.

I pulled up this story because I saw the short title: Portugal battles wildfires amid third heatwave. It cut off the last three words: OF THE YEAR. This continues to be a weird weather year.

Ah, the idiocy continues. Now we have heat "truthers" (my phrase). Or rather, Britain does, though I wouldn't doubt that we have similar idiots here.

Yesterday I noticed that the news media didn't feature what has been a standard annual feature for years: the remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The only place I have seen any has been on the Japanese news site NHK.

William Hodgeland posted on Bad History FORMER PRESIDENTS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT. Early in the essay he make a very good point on the use of the term "criminalization." It is one thing to contend a former president has been indicted by a weaponized justice department on "criminalized" activity. It is very different to say that "The former president has been indicted for alleged crimes and the case is going to trial." The Former Guy has been indicted for actual crimes according to the U.S. legal codes not conduct suddenly made criminal to fulfill a political vendetta. Those are crimes who ever commits them unless you subscribe to Richard Nixon's hypothesis that "if the president does it it's not illegal." That is precisely the theory one of TFG's lawyers spouted over the weekend claiming TFG has "total immunity." If you agree then we have a class of people who are above the law. Otherwise, TFG is indicted for actual crimes he may or may not have committed and is about to go through the prescribed procedures outlined for all CITIZENS with the presumption of innocence until such time as a jury finds him guilty or not guilty.

Joe Perticone has a piece describing what has happened to the railway safety legislation that was being negotiated in the wake of the East Palestine crash. Norfolk Southern has spread a whole bunch of money on donations to legislators of both parties as well as on donation to both parties pacs and committees to derail it. I have said that both parties are basically different sides of the same coin which is the Wall Street/Finance/Big business and Industry coin. Those interests dominate while the welfare of ordinary people is out of sight and out of mind.

We use cash. We have switched to mostly cash transactions after Mom almost fell victim to one of those nasty scams that try to drain your bank account. They pretended to be a company she deals with and claimed her computer security plan fee was due. Mom was maybe four key strokes away from transferring most of her account to them when something confused her and she figure things out for her. I got suspicious and ended the call after which we called the company directly and discovered the fee wasn't due for several months. But it totally discombobulated her digital banking system. As a result she doesn't use it any more. She also had serious mix ups with two credit cards that thankfully didn't involve any monetary loss but were frustrating enough to make her stop using them. I sincerely hope the "cashless" society never comes to pass. Though it is progressing in some areas as noted here.