January 19

 We had a fair bit of snow over night. It isn't light yet so all I could actually see is what is on the patio. A car's headlights showed a vigorous snow falling. 

Saw this first thing this morning which doesn't bode well economically. Market Watch provides more information here. Note that throwaway line where an official acknowledges that the water problem isn't just affecting the Canal--it is country wide. Actually, the drought is major factor in the immigration situation. The entire region has had a multi-year drought.

We shouldn't be surprised by this post by Susie Madrak on Crooks&Liars. All the "childhood" diseases are coming back as larger parts of our society reject vaccines. She does note that "exemptions" have been liberally allowed but pulling that back won't work. Most of the reason those diseases became rare is states and local governments and school officials mandated kids be vaccinated before going to school. I grew up before the vaccines were introduced. I and most of my cohort had measles, mumps, chicken pox. Thankfully, I don't know anyone who suffered severe complications but we should remember that those diseases decimated the native populations where ever Europeans arrived in the Americas and the Pacific islands. They can be deadly.

This is absolutely crazy. Some F&&king conspiracy theorist admitted at trial he started 14 of the Canadian wildfires. He said he wanted to test whether the governments were speaking truth when they warned about how dry the forests were.

Interesting piece by David Kaiser at his History Unfolding site. It reflects my own notions that no one is very happy with our politics and that both parties are more aligned with the financial powers than with voters.

I have read two posts over the last couple of days on the matter of trust both spring off the Davos meeting this week. One noted that the participants represent individuals and industries that have earned our distrust because of lies, predictions that fail, gaslighting (your economic pain isn't real because the numbers say something else), and other such self-serving tactics. The other today noted that we generally trust what touches us directly and that we can see. If you use something and it functions as it should, you trust it to continue to do so and the company that made. The farther the phenomenon is from your direct experience the harder it is to trust it. If you can see it and verify it, you trust it. The opposite is also true: if you can't verify it, you don't trust it.

So, our politicians mustered the gumption to pass....another continuing resolution kicking the budgetary can down to early March. One day they will run out of road. The potholes are getting pretty big already.

Major irritation: Nikki Haley trying to explain why the U.S. isn't a racist nation, and in her mind, has never been. Somehow she thinks the aspirational sentiments of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution wipe out how people have actually lived. The fact of slavery. The fact of indigenous genocide. The fact of Jim Crow and the KKK. Not everyone was racist. But we had enough and they had enough influence to give the whole a tinge of racism.