Cloudy with possible snow again. I have been busy this morning. I spent some time going through the paper we accumulated last year: lease agreements, insurance policies, paid bills, etc. Most got thrown out. I am changing this year and will only keep the paid bills till the new ones come in. And as the insurance and lease renewals come in the old ones will go out. I took apart some of the Zoom squares I had already put together but never really liked the finished product. I will try something else with them. And I put in my Instacart order which will be a fairly big one because over the holidays I let a number of items go down and needed to replenish them. I also didn't want to put in an order during the snow squalls that came through. I didn't want to go out in that mess and I didn't want anyone else to do so. It was also frustrating because we couldn't remember the password for Mom's e-male and the damned system demanded a new password which I tried to put in three times before it was accepted. Nothing makes me scream like these damned systems--not even Trump.
I finally got the grocery order put away. I still have to break up the packages of chicken breasts and thighs so I can freeze ready to use portions. Had a bit of time to sit down with my breakfast (banana nut muffin). So back to reading.
Nate Bear takes apart the whole argument that progress will save us. Any argument that either conditions today are the best ever or the worst ever depends on what metrics you choose to use. I wrote above that nothing makes me scream like some of the internet systems I have to use but I use them for many hours each day. I also use google which is running some kind of AI which is rather amazing. I don't use it to generate any content on this blog or for any other "creative" activity. Some such activity AI can't do any way--needlework etc. But getting quick information without trudging to a library and searching the stacks, I'll take that any day. Point though: I don't take anything the system coughs up as gospel. Bad/good/better is very much a matter of perspective.
03*********************************************
Well, the new year has started off with a bang and not just metaphorically. My cats insisted on waking me up this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep so I got out my iPad intending to read a book for a while. But the news push said something about explosions in Caracas which derailed me. I pulled up the news and discovered that we had launched an attack on Venezuela and arrested (kidnapped, maybe?) Maduro and his wife. Viewed from an historical perspective "regime change" operations haven't gone well for us. Bill Astore has some comments worth pondering.
A thought on the Venezuelan situation: the U.S. has Maduro and wife in custody but the network he built up since he inherited the control of Venezuela from the recently deceased Hugo Chavez is still in place. That doesn't scream more than a change in who is at the head of the system not a change of system.
Stray thought: just a few days ago I read a piece (sorry, I can't find it now) that said Chevron is suing Venezuela through some kind of arbitration because of their lost profits because of the U.S. embargo. That's nasty. The U.S. puts an embargo on Venezuela and an American company sues the embargoed country for its losses. How about collecting from the U.S. for what they have done.
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