I Can't Keep Up

      It's looking like we're deep into the "Grandpa is crazy, humor him" stage of things, with the U. S. Navy supposedly about to resume building battleships (hello, Billy Mitchell! Hello, Isoroku Yamamoto!), increasingly questionable oil tanker seizures, and the Heritage Fundation shedding senior members, most of them decamping to Mike Pence's no less conservative (but far less willing to wink at Nazis and Nazi-adjacent types) think tank.

     In Imperial Rome, when Emperors went whimsical, it was often a prelude to things getting sporty.  The men who wrote and amended the U. S. Constitution did their very best to build in circuit breakers and spillways intended to keep "interesting times" from becoming a pandemic.  Did they succeed?  Better fasten your seat belt and return all tray tables to the upright and locked position.  The ride's liable to get bumpy.

How Does It Work Elsewhere?

     The Bulwark compares the health care system in Japan to ours.  We don't come off looking so great.

     I can only point out yet again that universal health care is apparently so terrifically difficult that the only modern, industrialized country that hasn't come up with some way (and there are many) to deliver it is...us.  If that was the cost of a few trips to the Moon, then, really, we should have stayed home.

Malicious Record-Keeping

      Reading about the history of health risks from asbestos and the things companies did to cover it up, I learned that not all of it was overt.  Sure, people were pressured to sign releases, or sworn to silence as part of settling lawsuits; research was hidden; misinformation was promulgated: all the usual Hollywood-villain stuff really did happen.  But as lawsuits started to pile up, there was another technique: malicious filing practices.  Rather than destroy records, which would have been a red flag, a crime and of itself, some of the bigger offenders began "storing" records by piling them up in random heaps, often in scattered warehouses without climate control.  They could argue it was expensive to keep all those files, and impossible to keep track.

     Of course, they'd let opposing counsel dig through all that -- but don't expect an index.

     I've been thinking about that as the Epstein files have been released, a great big digital heap of stuff, some of it withdrawn for further redaction and then reissued, with no tracking.  Is it all there?  Who can say, but there's certainly a lot of it, and the various journalists and activist organizations are digging through it all, many with their own axes to grind.  It's another six-day wonder for the news cycle, steeped in rumor, adorned with a few facts gleaned catch-as-can.

     More sound and fury, associated with horrendous crimes against vulnerable young women, buried in the noise, much of it self-created.

     Don't think it's not deliberate.

"At The Tone..." (Signal Fades)

     Oops -- the National Institute of Science and Technology's time servers in Bolder, Colorado have been hosed by a prolonged power outage, and at this writing, the atomic clock is way off, at least as such things go.

     I don't see how that can happen without generator issues.  This is connected to the WWV radio time signal complex, a well-built, well-maintained facility that operates on a shoestring budget, with a handful of administrators, scientists, engineers and technicians keeping the equipment running.  They've got UPSs and generators; they've got the skill set.  They may not have the bucks.  The transmitters are pretty much antiques, but they were very well built and have been looked after carefully.  Boulder's got the same combination of people who know what they are doing and budgets that often become political footballs.

     During the first Trump administration, there was some talk of shutting down the WWV stations, due to cuts planned for NIST's budget.  It didn't happen, but this entire operation, the basic time and frequency reference for the United States, is treated like a mushroom farm: left in the dark and mostly ignored except when a fresh load of stable sweepings is shoveled in.  They rarely complain; they're too busy keeping the thing running.

Lessons For The Day

     First lesson, when recovering from a cold, Mandarin oranges are delicious -- and so are imported, dark-chocolate-covered cherries! (One of the first and, by an effort of will, only two of the second.)

     I managed to get to the grocery today, the first time I have left the house since last Saturday.

     Second lesson: Washington rarely gives you what you want.  The Epstein Files were released today -- almost entirely redacted.  Most of the blanked-for-declassification documents nuclear-weapons historian Alex Wellerstein unearths and FOIAs into the light have less blacked out on the page.  Yes, I said it: you can find out more about the once Top Secret U. S. plans to nuke the Moon than about most of the men in nice suits featured in photos in the Epstein Files, their faces entirely elided.

     It's sure nice the Great White Father in DC has managed to clear that up.

Green Peppercorns

     Oh, no, no, no.  Just no.  Green peppercorns are attractive-looking, and they are a standout among the various kinds of pepper, with a bright, sharp bite.

     While the pink (or red) peppercorns you find in mixed pepper are typically a whole different species, black, white and green peppercorns all come from the same plant.  The black ones are picked green, then boiled briefly and dried or picked and dried in sunlight, and either way, they heat up and darken, with some internal changes.  White peppercorns are allowed to ripen, retted (soaked in water for a long time), gently abraded to remove the skin and thin flesh, and dried, resulting in a white corn and a pungent aroma.  I like 'em, but a little goes a long way.

     Green peppercorns have to be picked green and processed in a way that keeps the green hue -- drying in sulfur dioxide and pickling being common.  Whatever the process, the end result doesn't agree with me.  At all.

     We ordered out last night, and I got lasagna with Bolognese sauce.  It was delicious!  But apparently it was made with green peppercorns, and, well, never mind.

     The green ones are uncommon and expensive, and encountering them is rare.  I'm grateful for that.  

Oxtail Soup For Supper

     Tam had picked up a couple of sections of oxtail earlier in the week.  I haven't felt well enough to go to the grocery since Saturday, so that was my only option.  I was thinking I'd use them with some leftover pork roast, but once the cooking was underway, I realized I didn't need to.

     The start for anything with oxtail is to salt and pepper them, and brown them on all sides in a little oil, reducing the fat as much as possible.  It takes a while; I usually give it four minutes a side and keep working all sides until I like the result.  You drain the rendered fat, keeping every browned bit of meat by turning the pan as they settle out.  Take your time; all those little pieces are full of flavor.

     Next, add just enough water to over the meat and let it simmer, covered.  I added a teaspoon of beef broth powder once it was bubbling, along with a few coriander and mustard seeds, a big bay leaf and a little oregano.  After about an hour, I peeled and sliced a couple of large parsnips, followed by about the same amount of sliced "baby carrots" (about a dozen of them) and three stalks of celery cut into 1/4" sections.  Didn't have any onions, so I gave it a shake of onion powder and some truffle powder for luck.

     After a half hour, it was smelling pretty good.  I fished out the meat and started snipping it from the bone, setting aside the larger pieces of fat.  You want pieces sized proportionally to the vegetables.  The meat and bone went back into the pot for another 45 minutes.  There's a lot of savoriness in oxtail bones; you want to cook them clean.

     The broth was clear, light-colored and tasty.  The vegetables and meat were tender.  Tam and I both had seconds.

     I almost always add tomato sauce and strong broth to oxtail stew, but this soup didn't need it -- or anything else, either.

I'm Just Watching

     I'd like to have something trenchant and pithy to say about current events; we're oversupplied with holiday tragedy, and then there's whatever the hell is going on between the Trump administration and Venezuela....

     Historically, there's nothing governments feeling their power slipping turn to more readily than a short, victorious war -- and there's nothing more likely to turn on them.  Ginning up an external (and/or internal) enemy is a common element in many authoritarian efforts; George Orwell was drawing on experience when he wrote (managed) threats of both sorts into 1984.

     We're not there yet, and there's a whole lot of "old man yells at clouds" going on, at home and abroad.  The problem is that when yelling leads countries, bombs and missiles often follow.

     It's not at all suited to the season -- but when is it ever really okay?  Pugnaciousness and preparedness aren't the same thing; neither are confidence and combativeness.

Oh--

     Thought I had posted something this morning.  I'm still fighting this cold, though it seems to be fading.  It's no fun to have a cold on vacation, but it's much better than trying to work while I have one; I used to do that, before COVID and before I had a co-worker who would "bravely" come in with colds or the flu, and give them to all of us.  If I didn't like him doing that, I sure had no excuse for doing the same myself!

     Any more, sick days and vacation days at work come from the same pool; and I am not much given to vacation travel.  So it's no great loss. 

The Cure For Kid Cocoa

     I enjoy hot chocolate in the winter.  I don't enjoy trying to keep milk in stock,* or washing out a pan used for heating it for just one cup of cocoa, so that means the instant stuff.

     One good trick for solving weak instant is to add a teaspoon of coffee creamer.  But the other problem with many brands is they're loaded with sugar.  And the fix for that?  A little more coffee creamer, a little more hot water -- and a level teaspoon or less of plain, unsweetened cocoa powder.  That kicks it up to something better suited to an adult palate, in my opinion, and I'm still not having to mess around heating up milk.
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* For some reason, UHT shelf-storable milk has become mildly scarce at my corner store.  It's still the best choice if you like to have milk handy but don't use it often.

Okay, Then...Dammit

     I have now reached the "obnoxiously crabby" stage of my cold.  It's probably a good sign; it means I've got enough mental processing cycles left over to be annoyed about being sick.

     That does not, however, mean it is any fun.  And I have to keep it reined in, despite an unceasing string of petty frustrations this morning: when I act annoyed, the cats get crabby with one another:
     "Mom's upset and it's your fault!"
     "No it ain't, it's your fault, you fluffy monstrosity!"
     "Yeah, well you're yellow!"
     "That's it!"  And they're off, wrestling, trying to chew one another's ears off, rolling over and over down the hall.
     Earlier, one of them was biting the other as he was headed into the litterbox, an offense against proper behavior so dire that we moved the biter to the front of the house and shut the door -- until his adopted brother, business taken care of, began wailing at the closed door about being so lonely, where was his pal, what had we done?

     There's no managing cats; you just have to figure out where they're headed and try to get there first.

But First...

     I went off to the kitchen for a coffee refill and asked the robot to play "Saber Dance."  She picked a version by the Boston Brass, and it was a good one, the kind of performance that has me idly wondering if they aren't having to rotate valved brass players out to the alley to fan them down while the rhythm keeps plonking along.

     Then it segued into something seasonal, doubly familiar and yet not familiar at all.  It turns out you can borrow riffs from Take Five and hurl them under the wheels of We Three Kings Of Orient Are, and it works out very well.  If you start picturing the wise men from the mystic East arriving in porkpie hats and sunglasses after this, well, I guess you can blame me.  Cool, baby, and dig them angelic trumpeters!

Well, Drat

     Tam had a very mild cold last week; she updated her cough-drop supply and spent a day at home.  It's still fading.

     Friday evening, I was kind of worn out and put it down to driving home in the beginnings of a snowstorm.

     Saturday morning, Tam shoveled the walks.  It kept snowing.  I shoveled the walks again that afternoon (and they needed it badly; the snow was still falling), rested a bit and made a quick run to the grocery for food.  The walks were covered again by the time I returned -- and our grocer's is only a few blocks away.

     I made chili for dinner.  About half-way through my bowl, it seemed to turn spicy-hot on me.  I crumbled in some crackers and finished it.

     I woke in the night with a funny, one-sided sore throat and very full sinuses.  I had picked up a cold from someone, somewhere and my exertion doing the walks -- look, we try to do all of 'em, at least  along the street, to our front door and from the back door to the garage -- probably hadn't helped.

     There was a pork roast in the fridge.  I marinated it in some pickling brine from a mostly-empty jar of home-made giardiniera with a little extra apple cider vinegar, soy sauce and oregano.  It sat in the fridge until later afternoon while I sat around the house, drinking a little eggnog and a lot of tea and beef bouillon.  Three and a half hours before dinner time, I browned the pork roast on all sides, set it on the meat rack in the same stewpot after deglazing with a little water,  poured a cup of chicken-mushroom broth over it and added three bay leaves along with sections of apple and turnip and put the lid on.  I rested a while, then put in parsnips and carrots, potatoes and celery, onion and shitaake mushrooms over the course of about ninety minutes -- and the effort wore me out.

     Luckily, most of cooking a big pork roast consists of ignoring it once the pot is simmering.  Along with the potatoes, I dropped in a cube of Knorr vegetable broth on a hunch,* and that worked out.

     Come dinnertime, the meat nearly fell apart.  It was moist and had good flavor, as did the veggies and mushrooms.  I took my time cleaning up the dishes and freezing the leftovers-- my nose was filling up quickly after every honk by then.  I fell into bed after finishing most of the dishes and only woke up to sneeze.

     Twelve hours later, here I am.  The sore throat has faded, my sinuses have at least slowed -- and I have less energy than a sleepy kitten.  It's still too cold (single digits) to order delivery in good conscience; I've had coffee, almond biscotti and a few saltines, which feels like plenty already.

     But I'm going back to bed.
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* The chicken-mushroom broth is low sodium, and while the pickling brine marinade most definitely is not, nearly all of it is discarded.  So a cup's worth of salty broth was liable to be fine, and it was.  That may be my favorite brand for vegetable and beef broth concentrate.

Looking Up At Freezing From Below

     It's presently two degrees Fahrenheit in Indianapolis, up from zero when I woke up.  Tam and I shoveled the walks a couple of times yesterday but they've got a thin coating of snow.  There's over five inches of the stuff on the ground where it wasn't shoveled.

     We'll be in single digits all day today and might reach the teens tomorrow.  I'm off this week and I'm not going anywhere until it warms up. 

Is He Dumb, Or Does He Think We Are?

     I admit it: my views on health insurance/health care have changed.  Coming up with a system that ensures all citizens get adequate health care is apparently so incredibly difficult that every industrialized democracy (and larger autocracies) except the U.S. has figured it out, in several different ways.

     Rand Paul, talking about the expiring Obamacare subsidies on Meet The Press this morning, first complained, "It's the artificial demand  that has driven prices up," by which he apparently means the weakly-enforced requirement (not to mention general individual desire) that everyone buys insurance.  How is that an artificial demand?  Was the point to have more health care for more people, or to encourage the weak and poor to die off?  Because the second is what we had before ACA, and what we have a little less of now.

     But that logical glitch was nothing compared to what followed: asked what he would do, the Senator from Kentucky explained that his plan would "...let Americans buy their healthcare at CVS, at [list of large retailers], at Amazon, and when you have a million or more individuals, that's bigger than any corporation," quite sensibly implying that per-person costs would fall; a sufficiently large pool of people is statistically predictable, allowing the insurer to manage risk, and the more of them you've got in the pool, the better that's going to work.  It's a great idea -- and works even better as it is scaled up.  It'd be a real hum-dinger if the insured consisted of, oh, the entire population.

     Don't hold your breath.  Not for an insure-everyone plan, or even for bopping over to Walmart to pick up their nationally-sold health-insurance package during the post-Thanksgiving sale.  If you take a look at Open Secrets, the majority of the top five political contributors are insurance companies, hospital corporations, and pharmaceutical companies; healthcare and HMO's are in the top twelve.  They know who to schmooze in Washington, and exactly how.  Every part of healthcare has an ownership/administrative layer taking a cut, and they'd all like a bigger slice of the pie.  It forms a kind of financial ratchet, and an increase at any point results in every part of the network turning the dial up.  It's a mess because it is a mess; the ACA legislation tried to make it less messy without asking any part of it to accept a smaller slice and, unsurprisingly, all that did was bake the messiness in. 

     Maybe Rand Paul is right; maybe it'll take a "Category Killer" to do to the insurance/medical complex what they did to the office-supply store, the corner grocer, the independent drugstore and the five and dime.  But while those little enterprises got squashed like bugs, Here Be Dragons, and it may have to all fall apart before it can be remedied.

     I'm not holding my breath for that, either.

     Pie in the sky is lovely to look at, but it's not nutritious. 

Count All You Like But They Ain't Hatched Yet

     I'll repeat that headline to Democrats and Republicans alike: the chickens of 2025 have barely come home to roost, and while there's plenty of frantic shuffling around of the prospective eggs of U. S. House seats, those eggs have barely been laid, yet alone hatched.

     Long-time Indiana Democrat political figure Ann Delaney, speaking about the failed GOP redistricting push this morning on Indiana Week In Review, suggested the Republicans are looking at a 50-seat loss in the House; elsewhere, the Republican national party chairman is warning his state parties that victory in 2026 is crucial.

     Well, okay, but we haven't even seen primaries yet -- and meanwhile, it looks very much as if time has run out for the Federal subsidies that kept ACA health insurance affordable for many Americans.  What I'm hearing is that House and Senate Republicans are of the opinion that most of the people who benefited were Democrats, if they bothered to vote at all, so why worry?  It's a gamble; a lot self-employed people and workers at small businesses rely on buying their own lower-cost insurance, and I'd be surprised if they were a solid block for the Dems.

     Nor can we be sure where the economy is headed.  I'm not going to rehash all the competing claims, or try to sort out which are fantasy and which have some basis in fact.  "Indications Are Unclear" is what my Magic 8-Ball keeps turning up; what's going to matter is how things are going right before the primaries and in the run-up to the general election.

     Anyone chortling "We've got him now" or that MAGA is a lock-in should be gently discouraged from putting any money down.  It's too soon to even make a good guess, and much too soon for helmet fires.  The trend among pollsters and pundits at present leaves the House and Senate balanced on a knife edge after the 2026 elections -- and those bodies haven't shown any great talent for the Sabre Dance so far.  It is a difficult piece, but they keep sawing the basses in half before the thing is even over....

A New System

     When I form my own country, we're going to vote in the legislature via some conventional way, but they'll have to live in military barracks, wear plain fatigue-type uniforms and eat regular military food in a chow hall.  They won't be allowed (?) to drill or march together, nor touch weapons.

     But we'll pick the Chief Executive by means of The Sandwich: At a location randomly selected by lot, a low table will be placed, with a ham sandwich wrapped in waxed paper on it, under a large wooden crate propped up at an angle by a stick.  Heavy twine will be tied around the stick, leading off to a concealed blind.  The two highest vote-getters from the legislature will wait in the blind, but they will not have known in advance where the crate will be, nor will they be allowed to communicate until some poor fool has picked up the sandwich and been trapped by the crate.  He or she will be the new Chief Executive.

     If it takes days and the legislators doze off, missing a sandwich-grabber?  Tough.  Somebody got a free sandwich!  Otherwise, sandwiches are swapped out every four hours, and the concealed Executive-trappers can split the old one.

     Is it a terrible system?  Sure.  But I've been looking at how the various countries of the world pick their person for the worry seat, and I've got to tell you, none of them filter for wisdom or for success at the job.  Might as well pick someone who knows free food when they see it, and who we can all recognize as the sap who fell for it.  Here's your uniform, Chiefie!  You get the bunk in the corner.  Workday starts at six a.m., and if you're not out of the sack promptly, the Sergeant-at-Arms dumps you on the floor and frog-marches you to the showers.

     They can quit the job any time.  Hell, we've got lots of sandwiches, and there's a sucker born every minute.

Indiana Says No

     Indiana's where I live, and it's a pretty conservative place.  It's full of stubborn people, and if you want them to change how they do things -- anything -- you'd better be filling a genuine need.  Hamilton County's road system has more roundabouts than anywhere in the U.S., but it only happened after decades of explosive population growth and four-way-stop gridlock that made getting anywhere at rush hour a crawlingly slow and frustrating experience.

    Indiana, like many other GOP-dominated states, has been under pressure from the Trump administration to redraw U. S. House districts and help retain the GOP trifecta in Washington, DC in the 2026 general election.  We've got nine districts; all but two of them are easy wins for Republicans.  Those two -- Marion County/Indianapolis/Seventh District, and the Chicago-adjacent  First District -- are about as strongly Democratic.  The proposed map split the Democrat strongholds; Marion county got it worse than Caesar's Gaul, hacked between four districts that extended deep into rural areas, most running all the way to the state boundaries.

     This wasn't a secret effort; the intention was well known and the maps were published.  Indiana doesn't have any rules against partisan gerrymandering.  But it didn't sit well with voters.

     I think there were two main issues.  One was that the changes were sweeping.  Your old, familiar House district would be gone, possibly taking your old, familiar U. S. Congresscritter with it.  In central Indiana, there was concern that "four millionaires from Indianapolis" would be speaking for primarily agricultural, rural areas, whose concerns would be underrepresented.  And the move was petty: with the GOP holding seven of the nine districts, they've already got a commanding lead; two more wouldn't make a big difference.

     For all those reasons, and plenty more, our state Senate rejected the effort, 31 to 19.  There are fifty seats; Republicans hold forty of them, so it doesn't take a math whiz to work out that 21 of the No votes came from Republicans.  When you can't sell a majority of your own party's state Senators on it, maybe redrawing the Congressional map isn't such a great idea.

     The legislature doesn't get another bite at the apple until Spring, too late to redistrict ahead of the mid-term elections.

Discontinuity

     Ever bend a hard plastic rod?  Many plastics will go quite a ways, and then, all of a sudden--  They break. 

     Mr. Trump's Republican party is courting chaos like a lovestruck teenager.

     In Missouri, both sides were playing chess -- until one side pulled out a baseball bat.  The legislature passed a bill to rearrange Federal House districts, with a map that will flip one of the two usually-Democratic districts in favor of Republicans.  Opponents fought back, with a ballot-initiative petition drive to put the new map up for a statewide vote.  You can do that in Missouri, but it takes a pile of signatures, and they've got to come from at least six of the state's eight House districts. 

     In fact, it takes a tick over 100,000 signatures.  The petitioners have collected well over 300,000, from all eight districts.  So it'll almost certainly go on the ballot, and per established precedent, the law is frozen once enough signatures have been turned in, while Missourians wait until it is determined if the signature requirements have officially been met, and until they've had a chance to vote on it if the number beat the minimum.

     The Republican Secretary of State says no; even if there are enough signatures, he can just declare the referendum unconstitutional all by himself.  And if so, the whole thing goes off the courts to work out.  It's not how the Show Me state has dealt with similar referenda in the past.  The power to shout, "Allee, allee, oxen-free," and dump the process has never been asserted by the Missouri Secretary of State before.  It seems, well, not the way a proper Republic goes about such things.  It's high-handed.  Authoritarian.

     In a state whose citizens are nationally famous for mulishness, it might not be the course of action that a sober, cautious politician should choose.

     I guess we'll find out.  Bending, bending--  Whattaya think?  Snap, or will it stay bent?  And what gets that treatment next?

     It feels like the lights are about to start going out, like the walls are closing in.  There's a lot of ruin in a big, well-established country, but there's no damn requirement to test that proposition to destruction.

Nostalgia In A Lab Coat

      Hey, remember when "consensus reality" and "objective reality" were pretty nearly congruent and widely shared?  Me too!  And now you can revisit those halcyon days with this handy list of ten things that are still true, despite fads and popular delusions!  (Many people will balk at #1 and yet -- there it is.)

Living In A Fantasy

      Indiana's diminutive Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith is at it again, this time with as fractured a historical analogy as you're ever likely to encounter: he says the Indiana Senate Republican holdouts against redistricting are "Neville Chamberlain types," attempting to "appease" Democrats.

     Precisely what state or Federal level Democrats have the power to do that merits appeasement is unclear; in Indiana, the GOP holds a commanding trifecta, and while their margins at the Federal level are far narrower, they've got majorities in the House and Senate and, of course, are firmly ensconced in the two-thirds of the White House still standing.  The Dems are nowhere near positioning to take the Sudetenland and the GOP hasn't sat down with them for a Munich Conference. 

     The John Birchers of my youth had a clearer grasp of history than young Beckwith (despite their spin), and their most fevered fantasies fell far short of the notions he so confidently spews.  He's all over the more-unmoored parts of the online Right chat-show circuit, a self-identified Christian Nationalist with, apparently, plenty of free time.

     Indiana's Governor, Mike Braun, comes across as a gruff paterfamilias type; he's absolutely on board with President Trump's agenda, 110%, but does so in a low-drama way, focused on the nuts and bolts of politics.  I think his number two, not the Governor's own choice, shows a decided preference for the nuts alone.

Indiana Redistricting

     Indiana's in the middle of a redistricting fight.  The measure passed the House 57-41; not coincidentally, Indiana's Presidential votes typically run near a 60/40 split.*

     The state Senate vote will probably begin in the Elections Committee today and it's looking interesting, with a 3-3-3 split, pro, con and undecided.  If the bill reaches the floor, the GOP needs 26 votes to pass; they hold 40 of the 50 seats -- but 14 Republican Senators say they're against the measure.

     Five Republican Senators aren't saying where they stand.  The bill has a lot of moving parts besides the new map, among them language meant to control how and in what courts suits challenging the legislation may be filed, complexity that gives Senators room to say they're still studying

     Twelve legislators, most of them Republicans, have publicly stated they have had swatting attempts, bomb threats and so on over this bill.  Meanwhile, President Trump has called out nine Indiana state Senators by name, telling supporters, "Let your voice be heard loud and clear."  You can parse that however you like; in context, the statement allows Eddie Haskell levels of ambiguity.

     Local advertising, on TV, and via direct mail, email and text messages, has been intense, mostly warning me about the terrible, terrible things the Democrats are going to do if they retake control of the House in 2026.  The list includes everything from bumper sticker level fantasy about the horrors of wokeness to threatening exactly what I'd like to see: a series of impeachments, convictions and removals from office.  Based on past performance, none of them are things the Dems are really likely to do, and more's the pity.  But it's keeping the lights on at the TV stations and penny-rate electronic and bulk-mail companies, so thanks for that, and for the ongoing, mortifying soap opera that is the collapse of the American system of government.  Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi must be so happy about that last item, and isn't happiness what it's really all about?
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* You'd think, in a polity of sturdy, politically-active Jeffersonian yoemen (and woemen), this would point to a 60/40 split in our U.S. House delegation.  Perish the thought, say redistricting proponents; they're aiming for a nice 60/40 division in each and every district, sending a winner-take-all wall of House Republicans off to Washington DC and the 40% will just have to take their lumps.

Subjective Reality

     Watching the Sunday morning political shows was an especially pointed example of "One screen, two movies."

     Especially when it came to the issue of military response to alleged drug-runners at sea.  Such facts as both sides agree on are sketchy at best: a fast, small boat, almost certainly a smuggler and very likely running drugs,* destination unknown, was fired on by U.S, forces are badly damaged.  When the smoke cleared, some portion of the vessel remained afloat, either the overturned hull or a large piece of it.  On that floating object were two individuals, moving around in a purposeful manner.  One of them removed his shirt.  After some time had passed, the U.S. forced stuck again, obliterating the people and whatever they were floating on.  And there's video if it.

     Several members of the United States Congress have seen that video, and their reports disagree significantly.  Some (mostly Democrats) saw two survivors, possibly trying to right the vessel or portion of a vessel, possibly trying to signal for help by gesturing.  Others (mostly Republicans) saw two individuals, trying to right the vessel, recover the cargo, and radio for assistance from other smugglers.

     They all saw the same video, probably on a large screen, probably in as high a resolution as authorized  Department of Defense personnel saw it when it was happening in real time.  And they took away different narratives.

     Stepping back, on the one hand, we have a small, fast, heavily-laden vessel, not as large as a WW II PT boat, with powerful engines and armed with rifles at best.  On the other, we have good-sized ships of the U. S. Navy; the outcome of battle between them is not in doubt.

     Is it appropriate or legal for a nation's Navy to fire on smuggling vessels in the open sea?

     Having done so, is it appropriate or legal for a nation's Navy to fire on any crew of that vessel who survived the initial attack?

     It is well established that vessels suspected of unlawful activity can be "pulled over" -- commanded to heave to, with a shot over the bows if they don't comply, illegal freight seized, crew arrested.  It is well established that if a small (or large) vessel makes aggressive moves towards a Navy ship -- say, a shipload of Houthi militants with an eye on eternity -- shots across the bow can become shots on target.  It is eminently lawful under international agreements to resist and hunt down pirates.

     There's no precedent for hunting down dope-runners and blowing them out of the water.  There's precedent against killing survivors after an attack.  When German and Imperial Japanese naval vessels did so to Allied crews in wartime, they were reviled for it.

     DoD may release the video.  We're not going to get the same resolution their guys saw.  We're not going to get the same image quality elected politicians saw, and there's good reason for that: DoD doesn't want any foe to know just how well they can be seen.  But if we get to see it, whatever we get, from fuzzy proxies to 720p, we're going to look at the same screen and see two films.

     History will only see one.  I wonder which it will be?
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* The administration keeps saying it's fentanyl.  Experts say it's most likely cocaine, and not headed directly to the U.S.  It's very likely drugs, though even that is not certain.  It is smuggling of some kind. 

History Grinds On

     It's painful to watch: some of my friends and former friends, lifelong Republicans, or conservatives, or l/Libertarians, are starting to wonder if they might have some very unsavory bedfellows, as the Trump administration departs farther and farther from norms of civilized, decent behavior and the rule of law.

     They're in an awkward position, among their own friends, many of whom are very much on board with wherever the current version of the GOP is headed; others are suppressing their own doubts, struggling to come up with reasons why the Democrats could only be worse, or why no moderate or even traditional Republican should try sailing into the blowhard winds coming from the White House.

     Some of them may bail out, eventually, and at no small short-term personal cost; ask Liz Cheney.  Others will ride it all the way down until it augers in, as it inevitably must, "good Germans," patriots who "had no idea what all was going on."

     The perpetrators will some day come to justice, or at least flee from it, by death or jet plane, red-handed and reviled, but the people who stood idly by and let it happen, the cheering throngs who never looked too closely, the passive fellow-travelers who figured it would all blow over if they looked the other way, they'll all get a pass, just like always.

     We're going to be stuck with the hard work of rebuilding a society that values science and sanity, that believes in the inherent worth of people, that all men -- and all women -- are equal before the law, and many of our fellows will still be drifting along with the current, ignoring that scintilla of guilt sizzling away in the back of their minds: they could have been against the current mess sooner; they could have helped nip it in the bud.  They didn't, and the blood is already on everyone's hands.

     There will come a day when they shake their heads sadly, and mutter, "We didn't know.  We couldn't have stopped it."  What they'll mean is, "We didn't want to know.  It was too much effort to stop it," but history says we'll let them hang on to their self-protecting illusions, and work to do better next time.

     The march of human progress is not a smooth, simple upward curve.  It never has been.

Aghast At Dinner?

     A recipe popped up on my New Page screen that gave me pause.  I don't know; maybe it's delicious.  Maybe it's just calling it "pizza beans skillet" that strikes me oddly, for all that I love beans, pizza, and things made with tomato sauce and plenty of spices.

     Maybe I'd just rather wonder about thinner-than-usual pizza sauce, the Usual Ingredients,* cooked cannellini beans and a nice cheese topping than about the state of politics.  It's certainly a lot nicer to look over at the other guy's plate -- and see that he has a plate, and dinner on it -- and think, "That looks great," or, "Oh, no thanks," instead of you both thinking, "That weirdo needs to leave."
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* But not pineapple.

Beneath Contempt

     Move over, Andrew Jackson!  Scoot down, Woodrow Wilson!  Man, the kind of talk coming out of the White House these days would have gotten a guy shushed at a John Bircher meeting, once upon a time.

     This once was -- and not so long ago -- a country where we'd let people fail on their own lack of merits, as individuals, and figure it was that one guy, or maybe him and his criminal associates, not every person who came from the same place.  It was a country where even a man inclined to wave a broad brush at entire groups of people -- like my Dad, along about the late 1960s, with his first few African-American electronic-production workers in the "clean room," training them reluctantly and pleasantly surprised that they were just as good as their predecessor peers.  A few trainees would wash out every hiring cycle and it was no different that time around, but lo, the skills needed for that job turned out to have nothing to do with the complexion of the workers.

     A President who fumes, "Everybody from [foreign nation] is garbage.  They're ruining this country," is talking racist nonsense.  Look, there are people who are harsh judges of character and people who are lenient; that's one thing.  But making sweeping claims about demographic groups is bullshit.  It's flatly wrong -- and so is anyone who overlooks such behavior, no matter what their reason might be.  (Video here -- and my quotes are approximate.)

     We're all equal before the law.  That's the notion this country was founded on and has struggled to live up to.  Presidents ought not try to drown the idea in a ditch.  It's unworthy of the office.

Maybe It's Not Just Disliking The Cold

     Yesterday, I had sinuses so messed up that I wasn't navigating well.  After a couple of attempts to get out of the house, I gave up, got out the nasal lavage supplies, and managed to reach a state of only mild headache and nearly free breathing without having to gulp like a carp, but so weak I could have been beaten up by a squirrel.

     Today opened with a knitting-needles-in-the-ears headache plus sinus pain; I took acetaminophen and crawled back into bed for a couple of hours.

     The sudden onslaught of winter filled me with dread, but I thought that was just emotional silliness, the kind of thing you rub a little dirt into and keep moving.  Maybe not.  Dammit.

Flashback?

     Fox News is in court again -- well, still -- facing off against a voting-machine company.  What, you thought it was over, and that they'd settled out of court for a staggering sum?

     That was Dominion.  This is Smartmatic, and it ain't over yet.  Lawyers and PR flacks from both sides are talking tough and the shockingly cynical comments from Fox on-air talent and others that came out in the run-up to the Dominion settlement are getting another run-though.

     Will Fox blink?  Will Smartmatic prevail if the case goes to trial?  I don't know.  I do know it's all about eyeballs and the relentless pursuit of them -- and the ad dollars they bring -- by Fox News.  If you were expecting any Edward R. Murrow-like pronouncements of journalistic ideals, or even partisan flag-waving like the newspaper magnates of old, forget it.

Rankings

     GDP -- Gross Domestic Product -- is an imperfect measure of how well a country is doing.  You can't look at it and infer, for instance, how comfortably plumbers in Beijing, Vladivostok, Kokomo and Kerala are living relative to one another.

     But it's what we've got, an apples-to-apples yardstick that tells us a little about the average wage-earner and a lot about countries as a whole.

     By that yardstick, the U.S.is way out in front, with China and the EU  jostling for a fair second place.  The rest of the world is a lot worse off -- Russia is down between Canada and Italy, with an economy thirteen percent the size of the EU or China, eight percent that of the U.S.  Call it 2.5 trillion dollars.  California's most recent GDP numbers, over four trillion, put it well ahead of the sprawling giant.  If California were a country, they'd rank about fourth (and they'd be spending a lot more on defense, so don't get too complacent out there).  Gavin Newsom is running a larger country than Vladimir Putin, despite having a fraction of the land area and less than a third of the population.

     When you see Russia referred to as a "paper tiger," that's the kind of thing they mean.  The butter is spread very thin over there -- and thinner still, given what Mr. Putin's government is spending on guns instead.  That's a big slice of the planet, and a big chunk of the world's population, on short rations and fighting what amounts to World War One with added robot bombs.

     China is gleefully watching Mr. Trump run America's share of Western Civilization down the garbage disposal, thinking they'll end up on top.  It's a lot more likely they'll go down the drain along with us, if it comes to that; based on past performance, their response to a global war or the next pandemic is likely to come up short.

     With the rise in preventable disease, trade wars, regular wars, growing disregard for the rule of law, devaluation of science and increase in illusory BS (much of it driven by AI), humanity seems determined to dig themselves into a new Dark Ages.  While there's evidence they're not quite as "dark" as popular opinion believes (nor the collapse as sudden), it's not a bright time, and as a species, we're not too bright if we fall into it because we've decided we don't like our neighbors and that tolerating harmless weirdos is too much work.

     The hopeful side -- and the scary side -- is that the United States is an 800-pound gorilla, the only one on the planet.  When the U.S. has a cold, there's sneezing all around the world.  And we've got our act together, we tend to pull everyone else along.

     The barbarians are at the gates -- and a lot of them are coming from inside the walls, where they've been all their lives.