February 26

 We have errands later today. It is nice and sunny with temperatures reaching the 60s--much above normal. It is supposed to continue tomorrow so I hope to get some of the patio cleaned up. After that the temperatures go back to a more normal 30s and low 40s.

We spent Sunday watching soccer and rugby. The local news was as depressing as usual--shootings, auto accidents, Chicago politics. The national news is both depressing and infuriating. The sports are much more pleasantly entertaining.

I started hearing the Democrat message that appropriating the billions of dollars for Ukraine and Israel isn't like sending gobs of money overseas because it will, mostly, be spent in this country for armaments. Bill Astore has an appropriately sarcastic blog about that cynical government argument. I don't think it is going to fly with Palestinian voters who object to their government spending their tax dollars to help Israel kill their family members in Gaza. Nor will it fly with younger voters who think supporting genocide is good foreign policy. If we are honest, and some of us aren't, we have to acknowledge that Israel's actions are genocide.

William Hartung also has a good article on Tomdispatch on the issue of military spending. 

I do wish there was a choice other than bad (Biden and business as has been usual) and much worse (Trump and despotism/Christian Nationalism/Handmaid's Tale). The assumptions our policies are based on have been baked into our thoughts and actions since the end of WWII. There is an inertia in human affairs just as in physics. What has been will continue to be unless events of sufficient impact force a change. (I.E., A body in motion will continue on its course and speed unless acted upon by an external force sufficient to change it.) 

Well, fire season has started, if last year's season ever ended. Texas has a 4K acre fire that is contained and Colorado has one outside Colorado Springs. The Weather Chanel has a map of fire warnings and watches that stretches from the Gulf to Canada and almost as far east as Wisconsin and Illinois.