March 20

 Sunny morning--still cool.

Stray thought: Trump told Nigel Farage that NATO is more important to Europe than to the U.S. because we have a "big beautiful ocean" between us and them. Really? How well did that work in the lead up to WWI when Germany engaged in unrestricted submarine warfare? Or in 1941, when Japan traversed a larger ocean to attack Pearl Harbor? We still have submarines many of which can launch nuclear missiles. And each side has intercontinental ballistic missiles which can cross the distances between us and them in minutes. How stupid can Trump be?

Another stray thought: California has issued a warning to the patrons of a restaurant over--measles. That is a concern for those who, like me, have either had measles or the full course of vaccination. (I had measles and therefore have immunity and got the vaccination in boot camp as well.) The epidemiologists don't expect any of the recent outbreaks to become widespread because a sufficient number of people are immunized. I often wonder when (not if) a disease to which we don't have vaccines will come in. Our communal (non or counterproductive)response to COVID doesn't give me much comfort.

Evidently the retail giant Sainsbury in the U.K. had a problem: its cashless system crashed and they were only able to accept cash. The company had to cancel all home deliveries for one day. They attribute the outage to a software glitch because of an overnight download. Naked Capitalism has more complete coverage here. About a month ago we had a similar situation when we went to fill up the gas tank. The credit card system was down but the could take cash. Software, and other, glitches seem to be happening more frequently nowadays. The more complicated things become the more likely they will fail. See yesterday's link the the Charles Huge Smith post.

Bill Astore makes a good point: framing can make a big difference in how we perceive a story. In all the coverage I have seen about the growing famine in Gaza almost none mention that there are truck loads of aid waiting outside checkpoints on Gaza's border but they have been blocked by Israel. I choose to call the spade a spade--what is happening there is a human caused famine. Israel can, and does, block any aid they consider military or "dual use." Tell me--what can't be designated dual use. A tent can house a refugee family or a Hamas fighter. A sack of flour can feed refugees or Hamas fighters. Tell me--how do you tell the difference.