September 24

 Good morning all. I don't know how much I will get done today. Yesterday and Friday pretty much wiped me out. Everyone knows that when you clean up one place you find others that should be cleaned up. You can ignore the whole mess but once you start reducing the mess what remains is glaringly obvious and harder to ignore.

I found this Vox article that has me shaking my head. I checked out Ballotpedia which as a page listing the upcoming Supreme Court Docket. Note the self-serving assurances by those who want the Court to invalidate the Consumer Protection Finance Bureau that other agencies whose funding is secured by similar means (like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) won't be affected. Note also the argument that CPFB is a "law enforcement agency" because it brings legal cases and levies fines for those who violate the law. Really?? In that case there isn't a government agency that is not funded by similar means. Let's ask another question: do you really want the House of Representatives (even if we have a more responsible House) making decisions on highly technical matters on a case by case basis and individually funding every government expenditure? Just think about the chaos Tuberville has created in his egotistical attempt to enforce his narrow moral vision on the Defense Department.

A comment on The Weather Channel this morning claims that we have reached a new record: 23 billion dollar+ weather disasters this year.

Another border crisis and note the recent increase in tensions is over water.

This article on Medium didn't contain any surprises I hadn't heard before. However, there are a couple of acknowledgements I don't often hear from climate activists. 1) Most of us have zero real influence in the hall of power where what "we" do (or don't do) is decided. 2) There is a difference between what we can't change and things we can change. We can't change the rules of physics that govern the play of greenhouse gasses in the environment. 3) There are actions "we" could do and things we could do but won't. I put we in quotation marks because all too often we find there isn't really a solid majority willing to act.

September 23

 Welcome to the Autumnal Equinox. Cool and sunny this morning. The last weather forecast predicted a wave of possible thunderstorms will come through later today through tomorrow. I won't mind the rain, if it comes, because I look out on the patio and see a couple of plants that will need water soon. We have some housekeeping on the agenda today. Yesterday I started working on the mess the linen closet has become. I got most of it done before my energy ran out. The problem is simple accumulation. I have embroidered projects from the last fifty years. And I don't intend to stop any time soon. So I began sorting and put a lot of the linens into storage boxes and kept for regular use a fixed number of sheets, pillowcases, table cloths/dresser scarves, towels, wash cloths etc. After that I want to start on cleaning up/out and reorganizing the "What-Not Room." It, as our term calls it, is one of few catch-alls left.

Another of the stray thoughts about stories I have read: how much blame should attach to the U.S. and the E.U. if Ukraine loses agains Russia or the conflict settles into a long term bloodletting? I was amazed when the so-called allies insisted that weapons provided Ukraine not be able to strike inside Russia or that Ukraine wouldn't use longer range to strike sites inside Russia even if those sites were staging men and equipment for operations inside Ukraine. I was also amazed that Ukraine actually abided by those restrictions for as long as they did. Essentially we forced Ukraine into a gun fight with a (almost) unloaded gun. Our leaders, U.S. and European, showed a gross amount of cowardice. They wanted to give just enough to stymie Russia but not escalate Russia's responses. Russia has simply escalated anyway and threaten to use tactical nuclear weapons if pushed. It seems to me that the so-called allies are more afraid of Russia than of Ukraine collapsing.

Caitlin Johnstone has posted an article with a title that should give us all concern: We're being prepared for the Ukraine War to last into the 2030s. I look at the economic conditions and wonder how long Russia and Europe/U.S. can fund this war. Russia has been trying to recruit soldiers from outside Russia and get arms from sympathetic nations like Iran and North Korea. I don't often agree with Johnstone but she always gets me thinking.

Doomberg has a post the last half of which is behind a pay wall. However, I know where the author is going. The subtitle says it all: NO, we won't be making jet fuel from CO2. Synthesizing gasoline, jet fuel or other concentrated energy substances derived from oil from lower energy components requires more energy than simply refining the oil. That is generally the problem for all of the touted high tech answers to our energy/environmental problems. Wind power requires, in our current scheme of things, a lot of energy and rare materials to produce a much lesser amount of electrical energy. And the people who tout the windmills as non polluting don't, generally, take into account the pollution involved in the creation of the windmills and in the process of dismantling the components. The hype over electronic vehicles doesn't take into account where the electric energy comes from or what happens to the batteries when their useful life is over. Yes, they don't burn gas and therefore don't release CO2 and other pollutants directly. However, they get the electricity from power plants that do.

Another stray thought: for decades the West (especially the U.S., the IMF, and the World Bank) have gotten used to telling developing countries that they had to be progressive and adopt Western ways and values. Over the last few years that has been changing. China has repeatedly told us to back off and not "interfere" with their internal issues. Türkiye has held up Sweden's entry into Nato over Sweden refusing to extradite people Türkiye claims are "terrorists" and refusing to crack down on idiots who equate burning or defacing a Koran as protest. India and Canada are at loggerheads because the Canadian Government has charged the Indian government with supporting the murder of a Canadian Sikh who supports activists in India demanding an autonomous Sikh province. I could go on but point is: what goes around comes around.

Found this item on the MSN site and followed up with this CNN account. Evidently the recent rains on the upper Mississippi have done little to help the situation.

September 22

 We didn't get much rain yesterday but not much sun either. In spite of the rain we have had over the last couple of weeks our area is still in the abnormally dry category on the drought monitor map. They say that another possible rain system is moving in for the weekend. The temperatures haven't risen to the 80s as promised by the forecasts which I won't complain about. I can turn off the air conditioning while not turning the heat on and I can open the windows and doors for a breeze.

Every now and then a stray thought pops up about something I saw or read sometime in the past. This morning it was about the relaxation of the Senate's "dress code." It occurs to me that those who are most vocal about how a casual dress demeans the Senate--some how lessens the reverence for political institution are those who seem to have the least respect for the institution and their fellow senators.

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as CEO of Fox News and News Corp. He will take the title of Chairman Emeritus while his son take over as CEO. I wish I thought the change would make any real change in the company but I doubt it. I did watch one news show on Fox and never went back for the same reason I don't watch a local station owned by Sinclair--I don't like my news delivered with huge dose of propaganda. While I recognize that all of the talking heads have their biases and often deliver those biases with the news, I prefer that is kept to a minimum but Fox talking heads went beyond anything I wanted to listen to. I will form my own opinions, even if they are mistaken, and don't care to be spoon fed them.

Galina Krasskova posting on Gangleri's Grove has a long article that accurately describes our world. First, so many words describing horrible acts are becoming so over used: atrocity, ethnic cleansing, genocide. So many events of those types are happening but the terms used to describe them are losing their punch. She provides an extensive list. Second, one paragraph reminded me of a segment on the old Paul Harvey The Rest Of The Story program on radio (I am showing my age here.) He talked about an elderly aborigine man in Australia who hadn't heard his tribal language in decades as he was one of the last two members of his people left. And even if he had visited the only other speaker of his "native" language they couldn't have talked to each other. She was his sister and ethnic taboos forbade direct interaction between closely related men and women. I heard that broadcast in the 70s or 80s. Krasskova recounted the more recent death of the last member of one of Brazil's indigenous peoples who have been wiped out by illegal ranching, mining, and lumbering. Third, the author of the piece she includes writes "If we are alive, we can act. If we live, we must act." I would observe there isn't much appetite for the kind of action that might make a difference. I think we have seen that the attempt to sanction rogue states hasn't been working well because there really isn't a unified "We" to make them work. Sanctions haven't really worked well throughout the history of their use. They haven't really made any difference in North Korea's actions and ambitions. Nor have they done anything to moderate Iran. 

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism put up a long article on the Ukraine-Russia conflict today which makes some interesting though little mentioned points. She notes that we really don't know what the conditions in Ukraine really are. Most of the reporters file positive stories and are centered in Kyiv. Zelensky's latest "fund raising" trip to the U.N. General Assembly meeting and to Washington has been met with a rather tepid response and revealed more political fissures among allies. Poland is threatening to retain arms the U.S is sending rather than transferring them to Ukraine and is Ukraine is very unhappy with Poland's excluding Ukrainian wheat from their market. I can see a couple of good reasons which no one is mentioned out loud: if Poland is not so sure that Ukraine will win the war they have to think about who Russia might try to absorb next and supporting an ally by impoverishing your own people (a.k.a., Polish farmers) is never a good strategy. As she mentions the end is not yet really apparent. Russia might win outright. Ukraine might win outright. We might see an armed standoff with intermittent combat into the foreseeable future. How does each side define "win" and are either of the definitions at all realistic? Can Ukraine really depend on continued support for its military efforts and, later, its rebuilding? I am doubtful. And I am certainly doubtful if the so-called "private interests" will be interested in investing in Ukraine's rebuilding. And if Russia does swallow Ukraine, how bad will be the drain on their own strained economy? We could see neither "win" and both collapse.

September 21

 Still early here but hoping for a nice sunny day with a moderate temperature. It is a bit later than when I put up that first sentence and we have daylight now. It looks cloudy so I may not get much sun. Another day without any errands so we are thinking about some housework. I had planned to vacuum downstairs yesterday but put that off to enjoy a binge watching of Forged In Fire. They are getting ready for the new season which will start on October 4. So vacuuming today. We don't sweep every day--not even every week. Basically we do it when we really notice the carpets need sweeping, and then remembering a week or two later that they need sweeping. I don't have the energy or stamina to push even our light weight vacuum around on both floors on the same day so it is a two day operation.

I have seen an ad dripping with pathos from some group that is bemoaning how little our do-nothing Federal legislature isn't doing anything to protect children from the evils of social media. They claim to be speaking for "mothers who have lost our children." They fall flat with me. First, at 74, I have seen all too many efforts at censorship and all of them were centered around the supposed welfare of children. None of them really protected kids from anything. The Comstock Act of the 1870s was not only aimed at prohibiting the shipment by mail of information on birth control which was deemed pornographic but also the "dime novels" which corrupted children by glorifying violence and outlaws. I remember checking out Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, The Shadow, and Doc Savage series books from the library and being admonished by the librarian for wasting my time on trash instead of reading real literature. Prudish attitudes lasted a long time. Does anyone remember the Comics Code which infantilized the comics genre until the 1970s when Marvel bucked the censors by publishing a Spiderman issue which dealt with drug addiction? I did read that issue though I was in my twenties at the time and noticed that the message was very much in line with the medical and political messages that drugs were dangerous. But the censors hoped to "protect" kids by keeping any information about any controversial topic out of their reach. Why they thought that would work when it never has in human history I don't know. Does anyone remember the Motion Picture Production Code (a.k.a., the Hays Code)? Look it up. It didn't really work for long although it did infantilize the movie industry for decades. It was eventually replaced by the ratings system which didn't censor the content directly.

I watched an interview with Mary Berra, CEO of General Motors and this cartoon encapsulates what I saw of her attitude:

I have wondered why economists have always attributed inflation to workers spending too much money thanks to all of those generous raises they have gotten over the last thirty years when none of it every kept up with inflation. But those minuscule increases in compensation over the years somehow didn't have any such effect.

And here is another very appropriate cartoon:

And I would add: don't take medical advice from DeSantis' Surgeon General.

Both cartoons found here.

September 20

 Supposed to get warm today--into the 80s. Possible early rain. No errands planned.

Yesterday we shifted from the news very early. When it became repetitive and featured segments that were neither interesting and/or informative the put on our own re-runs. Most of our news really comes from internet sites and by that I mean various news outlets where I can read the stories I want.

Everyone and then the talking heads do say something interesting but usually as a throwaway line. This morning did have a bit of a departure from that. Joe Scarborough asked Richard Haas if the U.N. still had relevance and Haas (who has written a couple of books I found very interesting) bluntly replied it hasn't much relevance any more. He mentioned the failings: keeping Russia from trying to annex Ukraine, failing to respond effectively to the various conflicts in Africa, etc. Haas is right but the present impotence of the U.N. has been foreshadowed from the beginning. The U.N. (and, therefore, the U.S. because of our treaty agreements) engaged in the Korean conflict BECAUSE the Soviet Union was boycotting and couldn't block the resolution in the Security Council. The world has become far more complicated. It is not a world dominated by the victors in WWII. You can see that in how many "developing" countries have refused to fall into line with the U.S. and its allies on the Ukraine-Russia conflict. We haven't figured out how to navigate the more complex world.

John Michael Greer has a good piece on his Ecosophia site today. His arguments mesh well with another article by the Honest Sorcerer on Medium which details a long list of crises our politicians and power brokers simply aren't dealing with. Instead our "leaders" are ignoring them, pooh-poohing them, gaslighting those who mention them, or simply saying there isn't anything we can do. Greer's article notes that our "leaders" are more interested in maintaining a status quo that maintains their power and wealth for as long as they can. Who gets hurt isn't important so long as it isn't them. Who falls into poverty isn't important so long as it isn't them.

September 10

 We had a nice steady rain for a couple of hours early yesterday and then sun for the rest of the day. I didn't see anything worth commenting on so I took the day off from the blog. Let's see what I find today.

The first thing I saw on the news today was that oil prices had exceeded $90/barrel. I thought I would check it out with a Google search. One of the top headlines, at a site I can't get the full story without a subscription, claimed the CEO of Chevron predicts prices will top $100 soon. And the next headline touts an expert who says we really don't have anything to worry about. I didn't read either article. Mom and I discussed what we heard on the news and considered what we would do if gas prices became painful. That is how we handle such news here--we consider our options.

The next thing we saw as the coverage of the Senate relaxing its dress code. Our first reaction: so what!! I don't really care if Fetterman of Pennsylvania votes from the door so he doesn't violate the dress code by going on the floor in shorts and a hoodie. I thought the coverage passed into the ridiculous when the reporter interviewed I forget which elderly female senator who was outraged and declared that she would wear a bikini. Whoopie!! I am afraid all of the comments about how the ditching the dress code lessens the dignity and respect of the institution. That train left the station a long time ago. The only institution with less dignity and respect is the House with the Supreme Court nipping at its heels.

Another story that has dominated over the weekend and yesterday has been the United Nations General Assembly meeting where Biden is giving an address today. A lot of ink (and pixels) have been expended over the absence of Putin and Xi. However, they aren't the only leaders of major countries who will give the meeting a pass. France's Macron and England's Sunak are also not attending. One article made a stray comment wondering (and reflecting the questioning of leaders of smaller countries) how really relevant the U.N. is in today's world. At the same time, on the fringes of the U.N. meeting 32 Atlantic rim countries are launching a Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation. You can get details on that here. And Foreign Policy has another article on the state of the United Nations--and it might not be so good.

For years Türkiye (once called Turkey) has been negotiating for admission to the E.U. According to this AP story President Erdogan may be reconsidering. Given the back and forth over his block of Sweden's entry to NATO (now joined by Hungary).

September 16, 17

Cool again but the temperatures are supposed to start rising for the next week. Thankfully they won't go into the hot range. The weather reporter this morning said that the 7pm sunset is the last for this year. Not a surprise since the Autumnal equinox is only a few days away. By the end of this month the patio will be in shadow with only some sunlight that hits the corners of the fence in the early morning and late afternoon. We have been watching a flock of small birds (maybe two dozen) and a family of ground squirrels feeding--the birds fighting over the perches on the feeder and the squirrels cleaning up what they drop. We wonder if all the frenzied activity means a hard winter is coming. 

The numbers coming out of Libya for the dead and missing are absolutely astounding. So far those numbers stand at 11k dead and another 10k missing. The only other "flooding" disaster I can remember that posted more victims was the 2004 tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean basin and killed almost 230k.

17*********************************************************************

We should get off and on rain today. 

Reading the stories about impeachment, including the embarrassing tit-for-tat nothing burger in Washington and the Paxton crap show of partisan loyalty triumphing over all, I am convinced that it has become a useless article in the various Constitutions state and Federal. Today we have a significant number of our politicians are nothing more than careerists who might as well use it as toilet paper. They are more loyal to their political parties than to any moral or ethical code. I can't imagine any of them signing a document pledging their "lives," "fortunes," and "sacred honor," as the Founding Fathers did in signing the Declaration of Independence. And I wouldn't trust any of them to keep that pledge.

The local (Chicago) TV news mentioned that the ice on and around Antarctica is at the lowest level we have ever seen. And that, as we are going into fall and winter, the southern hemisphere is going into spring and summer. This story on BBC gives more details.

There is a lot of talk about how the 14th Amendment, particularly Section 3, might be applied to The Former Guy--in particular to disqualifying him from running for the presidency again and from office should he be elected. I have misgivings about can or should be used. As a couple of the pundits have noted the issue will, almost certainly be litigated all the way to the (not-so) Supreme Court. How the judiciary might lean on the issue is problematic. Also, the argument that the amendment is self activating just like the requirements on age and citizenship are. Both of those attributes of a candidate are somewhat simple "yes or no" propositions. Either someone is of the required age or not. As we saw, in 2008 and 2012, the issue of citizenship can be contested, though unsuccessfully at that time. The issue of "insurrection," or "rebellion," as a disqualification is very contestable because those enter the realm of law. What is the legal definition of "insurrection," or "rebellion?" Does the the crime have to be charged and tried in court with the alleged criminal convicted before the Amendment is enforced? William Hogeland has a good piece on the history at his Bad History site.