April 12

 The weather is improving here. Temperature is in high 50s so far and it is sunny. The wind is picking up and the forecasters say showers should develop over night. But if it is dry and sunny over the weekend I hope I can get out on the patio and clean up some more.

The news is covering the death of O.J. Simpson. Hadn't heard anything of him since he was released from prison after serving time for trying to rob someone he thought had some of his memorabilia. He was passing quickly into a memory blackhole. Sometimes I find it surprising how people who garnered a lot of publicity at any time fade from our consciousness.

Jeff Jackson has an interesting post but not for the discussion of the hearing in the Armed Services Committee of which he is a member. His account doesn't give any hopeful that the House is going to vote on the Ukraine aid bill but he did give a list of bills that are supposedly on the table for next week. I will let you look at the list. I already have because I was curious about the titles of the bills. I am always amused at how the our politicians use and abuse terms like "freedom" and "liberty." There is a theme in all of the bills listed. They all want to prevent government actions to prescribe and enforce conservation standards, such as efficiency standards, for appliances. I will let you make of this what you will but it reinforces my view that the only changes we will make in conservation and energy efficiency will be on the individual level. Government and industry will not save us.

Stray thought: I have said for some time that one of our most intractable problems dealing with the world is that our politicians haven't recognized how much it has changed over the last 30 years. I was gratified when a pundit said just about that this morning in reference to the situation with Israel. Our diplomatic stance toward Israel was set in 1948 and into the 1950s and hasn't changed much since. But, to bastardize a saying, it isn't your father's (or grandfather's) Israel anymore and nor are the surrounding countries what they were either.