March 8, 9

Rainy this morning but we have to go shopping. The canned cat food won't last the weekend and, believe me, the cats MUST be fed. Otherwise they WILL make their displeasure known.

Update: we are back home and the cats are pleased. We had heavy rain; heavy enough I let Mom off at the supermarket door, parked, and then went through the rain. And then let her tend the groceries while I went for the car. I will say that the grass is coming in very green with the rains we have had.

09********************************************************************

We had a heavy rain overnight but has stopped now. The sun broke through a bit ago but we now have more clouds. It looks like we will have a partly cloudy/sunny day. The temperature was quite cold this morning.

We have three soccer games today. We enjoy some of the sports because they aren't politics and they limit the commercials to focus on the game. We anticipate a good day tomorrow with three rugby games.

Yesterday the post mortem on the State of the Union dominated the news. The coverage ran pretty much along the commentators and media outlets political alignments. Those who were more Democrat (or anti-Trump)aligned thought it went well for Biden. Those who are right wing Republican or MAGA aligned damned with faint praise saying Biden managed to clear the very low bar they laid out for him. I am amazed at how abysmally stupid some of the Republicans are and how easily Biden baited them and embarrassed them. (I am talking from the clips the news played.) I don't give much weight to what is said in these speeches. They might present goals I agree with but they depend on 1) the mix of personalities occupying the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives and 2) what happens between now and then socially, economically, and in world events.

The House finally got off their butts and passed one of the two groups of fiscal packages they had to pass. They finally got enough cuts in programs they don't like to do that. The Senate showed they can move when they have to and passed it themselves Friday. Now we have to go through this again for the second package that has to pass by the 22nd of this month. Let's see if they can get their heads out of their butts long enough to do that.

In another act of the Republican Comedy Hour, George Santos has announced he will enter the primary race for the 1st Congressional district in New York. He can do that since he was only expelled from Congress not impeached and convicted. He is still under indictment for criminal charges but, hey, so is his mentor Donald Trump.

And here is a heart-warming story. A 102-year-old woman asked her community to celebrate her birthday by donating 102 food items to the local food bank/community. They came through with 400 items.Bill Astore has a position on our "aid" to Israel I can agree with: stop giving. Of course our arms manufacturers would object because they are the main beneficiary of the aid we send. If I didn't already have more books on my reading than I can keep track of I would look up that memoir Astore refers to in his piece. I had second thoughts--I will pick up that book. It would give a different perspective on the Israel situation. By the way, Astore also has a good take on both the SOTU and (the even worse) Republican rebuttal. As to the truth or untruth or whatever contained in either, check my third paragraph above. And truth is often like beauty--in the eye of the beholder.

And for our bi-annual OH, SHIT moment--I was just reminded that we will have to adjust our clocks forward. I hate those times because the furry clocks (a.k.a., cats) can't be reset and our own biological clocks are out of sync for at least a couple of weeks. I really wish our asshole legislators would simply pick either daylight (not)saving or standard and leave it.

Have I mentioned before that I really, really hate getting new equipment--as in phones, computers, internet gateways. I just spent an annoying (to put it mildly) getting our new Xfinity gateway installed and working. Then we found that Mom could get on line without any problem but I couldn't. We originally had a "family" plan that allowed both of us to log in. We tried every way we could think of to get me on also but no luck. Finally, I bit the bullet and signed up for my own paid separate access. This might be part of the move in the industry to eliminate any kind of sharing (of passwords or accounts). Luckily we aren't so cash strapped as we were when we first got the account nearly 25 years ago. Thinking about it (and getting my temper back) it might also be good from a security point of view. OH, well, we adapt--some of us more easily than others.

All of this sounds so familiar. 

March 7

 Good morning, all. Cloudy and frosty this morning. The frost on the roofs has gone. Not much planned today. The State of the Union is scheduled for tonight. We won't watch. It starts about the time we call it a day and go to bed. I don't think it is worth staying up to watch Biden's amorphous hopes for his agenda which depends on his own reelection and a majority of like minded Democrats being elect also. And I suspect we would see the usual ill-mannered Republicans acting up in spite of their Speaker asking them to behave like adults.

Reading this Business Insider article about a woman who warned of the meltdown in the derivatives markets a decade before the 2008 crash I remembered The Big Short which detailed another Cassandra, male this time, who saw the same danger much closer to when it became obvious to all of the people whose job it was to look out for such catastrophes.

EuroNews reports on a drug causing concern. Physicians have prescribed pregabalin for a variety of condition but patients have had problems from side effects and then even more severe symptoms when trying to get off of it. Studies in Sweden report a significant number of suicide cases had the drug in their systems.

Stray thought: It feels like we have been on a merry-go-round (or a gerbil ball) for the last three years. When the Senate held their "trial" of Trump's Impeachment Republican leaders (and Trump's lawyers) insisted that it really wasn't their job to do anything so drastic as find him guilty, on the political stage, of insurrection and bar him from further office. Instead they insisted that there is a judicial system which can hold him accountable of the crime of insurrection.  It is the DOJ's job. The DOJ took a long time to charge him for that and now the case is languishing waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on Trump's claim of Presidential immunity. Then when the courts in Colorado and the Secretary of State (backed by the courts) decide he is an insurrectionist and should be bounced from the ballot, the Supreme Court rules that ONLY CONGRESS can decide how the 14th Amendment should be administered. Isn't it so reasonable that the very institution that abdicated that job gets it back gift wrapped by the Supremes. And so it goes. Thomas Zimmer says pretty much that in his substack post.

March 6

 Looking out the window it looks like we have clouds still. The Weather Channel says our current temperature is 40F and the high should be about 50. They expect the clouds to move out without dropping more rain. But I will wait until the next sunny day, at the moment predicted to be Sunday, to do the next round of garden clean up.

Super Tuesday came out pretty much as everyone expected. Biden and Trump won most of the states and their delegates. But each has his own problems with his supposed constituencies. Haley won Vermont and got a significant proportion of the vote in most of the remaining states. Who knows how many of her voters will vote Trump in the fall. Biden's big problem is the number who voted "uncommitted." Many of those are critics (whether Jewish or Palestinian-Americans) of our Israel policy. I think so many of our fellow citizens really want someone who will solve knotty problems (the way they want them settled) the same way Alexander "unraveled" the Gordian Know--for those who don't know the story, he simply drew his sword and cut it. Cutting through human problems that way is more likely to damage a lot more than it will solve.

On a sad note--the news this morning announced Haley's press conference this morning in which, a staffer confirmed, she will announce she is ending her campaign. Sad because I liked how she has morphed into a serious Trump critic. I only hope she never endorses him.

The Hill reports that the Biden Administration will form a "task force" to delve into the problem of price gouging. Various CEOs might regret their comments during a meeting a couple of years ago that they should raise prices as high as they could because of the COVID dislocations in the economy. The attitude basically was "do it while you can and as high as you can" consumers be damned. Found by way of Naked Capitalism with the reminder that the WIN (whip inflation now) Nixon and later Ford tried in the 1970s. It failed but what the admin on Naked Capitalism forgot to add was that in the next decade inflation was broken as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to the sky. That slowed the economy and seriously hurt anyone who had fixed incomes, had low wage jobs, and held CDs and savings accounts. Real prosperity didn't return until the late 1990s under Clinton. I wonder how the history rhymes this time.

Yesterday Krysten Sinema decided against running for reelection to her senate seat. Over her time as a Senator I have rarely agreed with her positions which seemed, to me, to favor corporations and the wealthy and did little for people at the lower economic levels. However, I will agree with her that the political environment today is not at all conducive to honest negotiations or mutual accommodations with opposing views. Instead politics has become a "scorched earth war" in which little gets done. But, I remember several instances where she seemed to be deeply involved in throwing gasoline on the fire.

March 5

Rain today and, oh my, what thunder, lightning and wind we had over night. The cats were not happy at all. The weather has calmed a bit for now. Needless to say, I won't be doing anything on the patio today. Glad I got some of the clean up done yesterday.

Thinking about the Supreme Court decisions over the last few years I had a stray thought: liberals and progressives have gotten too used to relying on the Court to drive their issues. That has been the case since the Brown v Board decision in the 1950s. I thought that some years ago as conservatives made concerted efforts to remake the top court and finally succeeded in Donald Trump's administration with the connivance of Mitch McConnell. What the court has given it can take away as we are finding out.

Watching the morning news coverage of Trump's latest efforts to put together coherent speeches I had another stray, and gloomy, thought: who is going to be the "gray eminence" behind Trump's throne if he wins again? Who will be his pick for Vice President? Most of the likely are, honestly, frightening. Worse, remember the talk about his cabinet invoking an Article 25 removal during the last weeks of his term. What if he wins, is sworn in, gets his cabinet in place (even if on an interim basis), and then they successfully pull off the maneuver?

Question: Is it really the job of the Supreme Court to decide "novel Constitutional issues" in a way that "insulates this court and petitioner from future controversy"? That is the comment from one of the "concurring" justices that filed a separate opinion that agreed with the basic decision (that the states don't have the power to disqualify candidates for federal office on Constitutional reasons) but disagreed with the reach of the decision (which claims that ONLY Congress has that power and then told them exactly how they should frame the legislation). That is incredibly close to "judicial activism" which conservatives claim to hate.

Stray thought: I don't know how many remember a couple of opinions that distinguished between "running" for office and "holding" office." If Trump wins will the Federal Courts have to deal with lawsuits hoping to prevent Trump from "holding" office per the 14th Amendment Section 3? If so will the court come back with the same argument that ONLY Congress can do that?

It is a day for stray thoughts. Here is the last for today: a quip I like points to American insularity. A person who speaks three languages is trilingual. A person who speaks two languages is bilingual. A person who speaks one language is---an American. I would add another line. A person who can't speak any language coherently is---Donald Trump. 

March 4

 It is starting out sunny and 52F. Might be time to do more on the patio. I have some drip pans to wash out and put out. I should also see how workable the soils are. As I mentioned yesterday I found green shoots in the pots of chives. It is time to clear away the dead leaves. I noticed the trees outside our front window is starting to put out leaf buds.

Nikki Haley finally got a win in the primaries in Washington, D.C. As the commentators noted last night, it doesn't really matter given the disparity between Trump's delegate count and hers. Super Tuesday is tomorrow so the general election match might be fully set by Wednesday morning. People are accepting the notion that it will be a Biden/Trump rematch whether we like it or not. I don't.

Stray thought: sometime recently I heard on response to the often heard comment that Biden is just too old. Yeah, Biden is old; but the other guy is also old and he's crazy.

Second stray thought: I said before that this election is probably the last hurrah for the baby boomers (my generation) unless something unforeseen happens. I suspect that 2028 will be a real electoral donnybrook. Given the crop of younger politicians on both sides, it might look like blue crabs and red crabs in their separate buckets seeing who will eat whom last.

Next stray thought: I have been thinking about the self immolation of Aaron Bushnell and his statement that he could "no longer be complicit in genocide"--meaning Israel's war in Gaza. The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has looked more like a dysfunctional marriage for the last 30 years. Either a renegotiation of the parameters of the marriage creates a different relationship or there will be a divorce.

Another stray thought: one of the news/commentary shows over the weekend showed a graph of how much aid the U.S. sends Israel and Egypt each year. One commentator mentioned that the whole mess shows how little power a "superpower" has to affect the behavior of supposed allies. Perhaps it is time for some tough love. Cancel this year's military aid for Israel and transfer half of it to Egypt on condition that they accept the Gaza population crowded on the order into a designated area and provide aide with the money. It is time to chart a different course that doesn't involve complicity in genocide.

Bill Astore asks "Who needs Skynet?" Humans seem so eager to do the job, why worry about self-aware AI. The Terminators would probably just look on with bewildered sadness as the last two humans killed each other.

Yet another stray thought: did you all see the report that the U.S. debt is (and has been for several months) growing at the rate of $1 TRILLION/PER DAY. That isn't yelling--it's emphasis.

UPDATE: got 11 buckets cleaned up. I trimmed back the dead branches on two, the lemon balm and a mint, and left the roots to send out new shoots. The others I pulled. They weren't hardy to our winter temps. I started sweeping the leaves gathered around the buckets and pulled the stakes, shepherd's hook, and trellis panels. Also started washing down the fence. Thankfully, the dirt and muck easily wipes off with a wet cloth. I will have to reposition the buckets later. I've done enough today.

The Supreme Court just decided on the 14th Amendment cases: the states don't have the right to disqualify candidates for FEDERAL offices on the basis of Section 3 of that Amendment. I wasn't surprised and not because three of the nine justices were Trump appointees as some have opined. If it had simply been all stripes of conservatives against all stripes of progressive the count would have been 6 to 3 not 9 to zip. So many people forget that we have a Federal government system that is parallel to a system of state governments and each system has its powers and responsibilities. The states do run elections and as the court ruling (which I read) noted can disqualify candidates for STATE offices. But they don't have the power to disqualify candidates for FEDERAL offices on the basis of the 14th (or other) parts of the Constitution. That is in the Federal wheelhouse.

Still another stray thought: we saw two efforts to impeach Trump fail at the Senate trial stage--on political considerations. The second was on the matter of insurrection. We haven't yet had a criminal trial but what if that also fails. The Supreme Court ruled that the states can't disallow a candidate for a Federal office. That appears to be a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation which simply leaves you damned.

March 2, 3

 Sunny this morning. It feels like it is a bit warmer. That I just confirmed on  the Weather Channel. They say the temperature will reach the mid 50s. We started off this morning with BBC. I really didn't want to see continued coverage of Trumps legal woes or the debate on whether the Supreme Court gave him a gift or might just sink his hopes that he will skate once again. Nor did I want to see more stories about him trying to plead poverty to get out of the monetary judgements against him. So we went from BBC to Premier League Soccer for the rest of the morning. Unfortunately the rugby season is on break for this week. Hope it is back next weekend.

Stray thought: Putin might have been better served if he had been a bit magnanimous and allowed Navalny a public funeral. Russia might be one of the few countries where it wasn't covered and the crowds came in spite of the government's efforts to stymie the proceedings.

03**********************************************************************

Nice lazy Sunday. I made up a cream of potato soup with left over pork roast and veggies yesterday. We will finish most of the rest of it today. This morning has been spent putting a few more rows in a crocheted blanket and assembling a couple of flower arrangements. They are artificial because that will last through spring when I will remake them for summer. Growing any plant inside is problematic because there isn't enough light and the cats like to munch. I also got a look at the gardens and emptied out a couple of the drip pans that had accumulated water from the rains and snow. Found some green shoots in my two pots of chives and what might be a start of a shoot in the pot of asiatic lilies. Otherwise no growth elsewhere.

I saw a headline that the U.S. and Jordan are airdropping aid into Gaza. Yesterday one of the news accounts noted that an earlier U.S. drop  supplied the equivalent of 35000 meals. Sounds like a lot doesn't it. But there are 2million people (give or take) so it would take about 57 such drops to provide ONE meal for all those people. And that assumes everyone would get their share through the crowds.

I found this article posted on The Telegraph and was surprised by the picture of wind turbines on fire. I hadn't seen anything on that before. I wondered how often such fires occur and more generally how often the turbines fail for any reason. So far the information is sketchy and thin but I didn't see that wind turbines fail more often or more catastrophically than other power generating plants. The article did say that a turbine fire is generally left to burn itself out which results in a total loss and replacing any turbine for any reason is a very expensive prospect. However, I didn't see anything that justified the headline about an "American revolt" against green energy. It didn't give any statistics on how many counties and where they are that may not be willing to agree to host green energy plants. It does note that the legal framework for green energy is still being built.

March 1

 Welcome to meteorological spring. And a double whammy has hit Texas. The largest wildfire in their history that is only about 5% contained AND a winter storm that is dumping snow--some areas expecting up to 10 FEET. The California mountains are also getting huge amounts of snow. We have clouds but the temperature is high enough to give us rain--later today maybe.

Update: the Weather Channel has just reported (3:10 pm) that the Texas Smokehouse Creed fire is now the largest in U.S. HISTORY.

Epsilon Theory asks "Why We Don't Trust Each Other Anymore?" and has some interesting answers. One problem involves language: the words we use and how we perceive those words. The author notes one poll that when people were asked if we "should give the poor support" more than 70% agreed. But if the word support was changed to "welfare" the approval rate dropped into the 30s. It reminds me of the polls on the ACA. Asked about the ACA and people favored it; asked about "Obamacare" people rejected it even when they were benefitting from it. The two are the same thing. The author also goes into data and how people perceive it and misperceive it. Interesting read.

CNN put up this article today. The Biden Administration is going to investigate foreign parts designed for our "smart" cars, especially those made in China. They are worried that foreign adversaries can gather intelligence or use the connections to sabotage infrastructure such as the EV charging stations. However, the focus is going to be on all connected cars which use network connections for several functions.

Another episode in the Foreign Tourists Behaving Badly show.

CNN also had this piece on Japan's demographic woes. However, declining populations are evident in most countries with the exception of Africa where the populations are rising more slowly as the fertility rates are falling.

BBC featured a segment today on the growing global phenomenon of obesity. The report said that 1/8 of the world population is obese--in other words 1billion people. They didn't say why which is rather normal for stories about obesity when they aren't demonizing poor people. I can think of several reasons for the uptick. One, changes in where people live and what they do for a living. Not long ago the world population became 50+% urban. More and more people make a living in sedentary jobs. Two, the American diet has infiltrated most parts of the world as have U.S. food production companies with high levels of fats, artificial sugars, and high levels of various chemicals. Third, I suspect that the world population is getting older. In most of the industrialized world the number of people over 65 exceeds those under 25. As we get older our metabolisms slow down.

EuroNews has an article on the global increase in obesity which gives more details and cites The Lancet. I found the article a while after I saw the BBC piece.