Microfibers from your clothes wind up in the ocean

There are all sorts of wackos

Today's is acting principal at a Wisconsin middle school. Apparently, an 11 year-old girl and a friend sprayed perfume on themselves in the bathroom. The teacher, who is allergic to some perfumes, asked the class who had sprayed perfume on herself. When no one responded, the teacher call the acting principal, who proceeded to "push the girl out of the classroom and into a row of lockers, then lost his balance and fell on top of her." Her mother said that when the girl came home she was “crying and her lip was cracked, bleeding and she handed me three of her braids that were pulled out from her scalp.”

Banks and the new tax laws

The Hill reports: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) revealed that the nation’s 5,406 federally insured banks reeled in $236.7 billion in profits last year, according to the agency’s quarterly banking profile. 

Yearly profits increased increased $72. 4 billion from 2017, and the rise includes $28.8 billion more than banks would have kept under the previous tax regime. Bank profits in the fourth quarter of 2018 rose to $59 billion, an $8.1 billion increase from the same period in 2017.

Is China on the way out?

Some Chinese entrepreneurs think so. In a recent poll of 465 wealthy individuals only one-third said that they are very confident in the country’s economic prospects. Two years ago, nearly two-thirds said they were very confident. Those who have no confidence at all rose to 14 percent, more than double the level of 2018. Nearly half said they were considering migrating to a foreign country or had already started the process. Polls have been wrong before, but it does look as though a number of these wealthy types have left the country. One of them is the subject of a NY Times article. He says, "China’s economy is like a giant ship heading to the precipice. Without fundamental changes, it’s inevitable that the ship will be wrecked and the passengers will die. My friends, if you can leave, please make arrangements as early as possible.”

It seems to them that Beijing has become more interested in solidifying its control over people’s lives than promoting economic growth. Others think that China’s leadership has mismanaged the world’s second-largest economy, and they are losing confidence in the country’s future.

An exoskeleton can help

Could you match his efforts?

Insects are leaving us

Farmers are the victims of our trade dispute with China

From Reuters:
“The share of total U.S. agricultural exports to China in value terms is projected to be 6 percent, down sharply, with China falling from the top market in 2017 to fifth place,” USDA Chief Economist Robert Johansson told the USDA annual forum in Washington.

He said the United States had exported 24 million metric tonnes of soybeans in the 2019 crop year, down 13.5 million metric tonnes from this time last year.

“Under the trade dispute, exports to China alone have plummeted by 22 million tonnes, or over 90 percent,” he said.

Johansson said sales of U.S. soybeans to the European Union, Egypt, Argentina, and others had risen, but that has “not been enough to make up for the lost exports to China.”

A few people who think they should be president

William Rivers Pitt has a lot to say about the status of a president, but I found the following laughable:

"On this Presidents’ Day, let us all take a moment to gaze in awe at the ever-expanding field of 2020 candidates, which now officially includes California Sen. Kamala Harris, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former New Jersey Rep. John Delaney, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and, of course, President Donald Trump.

The list of as-yet-undeclared Hot Maybes includes former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld; Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper; Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown; former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz; former New York Mayor and current billionaire Michael Bloomberg; Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam; former Vice President Joe Biden; California Rep. Eric Swalwell; former Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; Washington Gov. Jay Inslee; Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton; Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan; Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley; Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe; and probably the surviving cast members from Ben-Hur, I Am Spartacus and Gone With the Wind before all is said and done."

Agent Orange Lives

Arrested at 11

A sixth-grade student in Lakeland, Fla. refused to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance throughout the school year. A substitute teacher did not like that and had him, 11-years-old and black, arrested. The student told the teacher that he did not stand because he believes the pledge represents racism.

Fortunately,the state attorney will not prosecute the child. Interestingly, thousands of Florida students are arrested every year, probably because the state allows the police to arrest students of any age.

Fewer Banks, Less Competition

In the last twenty years 4,823 U.S. banks disappeared, some through mergers, some failed. We have gone from 10,220 to 5,397, a drop of 47%. Now, just nine banks hold 40% of domestic deposits. They also hold a heck of a lot of derivatives (remember these from the Great Recession?) and do a lot of trading among themselves. In 2016 the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR) found that the Federal Reserve’s stress tests were failing to capture the predominant risk on Wall Street.The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund has only $100.2 billion as of September 30, 2018. Yet, just the none biggies hold over five trillion in insured deposits. Are you starting to worry yet?

Was I blind?

Yesterday the cover article in the NY Times Magazine was "The Secret History of Women in Coding." It was about the decline in the number of women programmers. There were a lot of them in the early days, but, at some point, the number dropped quite a bit. I began my career in the software programming field in 1961 and can attest to the fact that many women dropped out of the field in the '70s and '80s. I could never figure out why. The work was fascinating and challenging, did not require heavy lifting and paid well. Many of us felt that we were helping to change the world. The best programmers then were women. They moved up in the programming world at the same rate as men. I worked for women managers and, as a manager, hired many women. Several women built their own companies.

The article asserts that they dropped out because of sexual discrimination. I think the bulk of the departures occurred in large companies where they were developing programs to better the company’s business. In my experience, the departure rate was less in small companies and really less in companies that developed basic software, such as operating systems, languages, testing aids, etc.

Things are evening off

Today's NY Times is heavy

I don't mean intellectually, although it may be. I mean physically. It must weigh a couple of pounds. That's due to the fact that it includes T Magazine, a fashion magazine. It's 225 pages long. The revenue from this publication must be quite high. If the Times averaged $100,000 a page, you're looking at $22,500,000.

Removing the mountain can ruin lives

There is a technique of mining coal in Appalachia that has destroyed the water people need to live. The technique, known as mountaintop removal, blows the top off the mountains where coal is located so that the coal, buried deep below the surface, can be excavated. One study estimates that an area the size of the state of Delaware has been flattened by this type of coal mining, which was first practiced in the 1970s.

In one typical house in the area the taps have been worn down, the washing machine frequently stops working, and the bathroom and kitchen have been stained a deep, bloody orange by the pollutants - iron, sulfur, even arsenic - that have seeped into home's water supply. A glass of water from the kitchen tap soon has a strange smell and a sticky texture and within minutes begins to turn dark orange. A layer of black sediment soon sinks to the bottom of the glass. The owner of the house says, "This is what we have to live with. We don't bathe in the water and we don't cook with it. It stains our fingernails, our knuckles, and our clothes. It's really, really difficult living like this." They have to drive for more than an hour to stock up on bottled water to drink and cook with.

I don't see our names on this list

from Bloomberg via The Big Picture

Do women wear pants or skirts more often?

Does this theory still hold?

True statements from our President?

“In fact, I think I can say this, Prime Minister Abe of Japan gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize. . . . He said, ‘I have nominated you respectfully on behalf of Japan. I am asking them to give you the Nobel Peace Prize.’ ”

"If you look at Idlib province in Syria, I stopped the slaughter of perhaps 3 million people,” he said, saying it was something that nobody talks about.

“When I asked President Xi, I said, ‘Do you have a drug problem?’ — ‘No, no, no.’ — I said, ‘You have 1.4 billion people, what do you mean, you don’t have a drug problem?’ — ‘No, we don’t have drug problem.’ — I said, ‘Why?’ — ‘Death penalty. We give death penalty to people that sell drugs.’ End of problem,” Trump said.
“What do we do? We set up blue ribbon commissions, lovely men and women. They sit around a table, they eat, they dine, and they waste a lot of time.”

Flying again

1 mother, 2 fathers

An advocate in the court

Millionaires want to be taxed more...

...at least in New York. Forty-eight of them wrote to the governor and legislator that the millionaires should pay more in state taxes. Some excerpts from their letter:

"We millionaires and multi-millionaires of New York can easily invest more in the Empire State, and lawmakers like you have a moral and a fiduciary duty to make sure we do so."

"The taxes we're talking about will not affect people's quality of life. They will not have any fewer private airplanes or boats because of this tax."

"Raising taxes on high-income New Yorkers like us in order to invest in our people and our communities is not just the right moral choice, it also happens to be in the long-term economic best interest of everyone, including millionaires like us."

One comparison

Electric cars on the rise

Another indication of our weak economy

The NY Fed reports that 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments. This is worse than the same situation during the wake of the financial crisis. There were over a million more “troubled borrowers” at the end of 2018 than there were in 2010.

Half male, half female

The cardinal above is both male and female. Its left side is the taupe shade of female cardinals; its right, the signature scarlet of males.

This is not the first time nor the first species where this has occurred. It has been reported among birds, reptiles, butterflies and crustaceans. The researchers are not totally sure that the bird is half and half without analyzing its genes with a blood test or necroscopy, but the split in plumage down the middle is characteristic of the rare event.

Farmers are in trouble

Bankruptcies in courts that cover the largest farm states in the country were nearly double in 2018 what they were in 2008, The Wall Street Journal reports. Farms in these states produce nearly half of all American farm sales. Revenues are down, especially with corn, hogs and soybeans. And competition from overseas has gotten worse. Dairy farmers are also in trouble; the retaliatory tariffs China and Mexico imposed on U.S. cheese and tariffs on pork have led to a record buildup of meat and caused prices of beef and chicken to plummet. The Wall Street Journal points to Trump’s trade war with countries like China and Mexico as a key driver in the rising rate of farm bankruptcies.

According to the Department of Agriculture, the median farm income was negative by $1,548 in 2018 while farm debt climbed to more than $400 billion, a rate not seen in the last four decades.

Visiting the neighbors

What the war in Yemen costs us

Aurora Borealis in Sweden

We need to act on global warming today.

Hotel Boeing

Another war we're losing

Test driving a new car

We keep dropping in these polls

There is something called the World Happiness Report. Last year it ranked us as the 14th happiest country in the world. This year we're down to #18. For several years, they have been ranking 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants.

The leading countries had high-quality social interactions which can happen when you have safe, balanced and harmonious shared experiences.

Don't go to a hospital in Venezuela

Hard to believe

She has starred in a documentary about her life, fronted fashion campaigns, been the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, carried out design projects at the White House under every president from Truman to Clinton, aside from George H. W. Bush, launched lines of jewelry and ready-to-wear fashion, as well as a 2018 book, became the oldest person to have a Barbie doll created in her image. That's a heck of lot of accomplishments. And, now at the age of 97, she's  signing a major modeling contract, with global agency IMG.

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent.

Where does fine perfume come from?

He doesn't want to be here

A Mumbai businessman, Raphael Samuel, plans to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent. He believes that it's wrong to bring children into the world because they then have to put up with lifelong suffering. Ergo, we didn't ask to be born, so we should be paid for the rest of our lives to live.

His mother's response, "I must admire my son's temerity to want to take his parents to court knowing both of us are lawyers. And if Raphael could come up with a rational explanation as to how we could have sought his consent to be born, I will accept my fault."

Riding the bus in Venezuela

Do you understand the rationale of this?

The person on the left is the mother of the person on the right, who has been recruited by the University of Pittsburgh football team. Apparently, this is not the first time such a photo has been taken. More and more parents are being photographed in a college team's football uniform. These photos happen more often as national signing day nears on Wednesday.

Exercising in DC

I wonder if the purpose of the State of the Union speech is to have our leaders do some exercise. Very often, the speech is filled with banalities and a repeat of what the president has been saying for a long time. Yet, the audience rises from their seats almost every other minute. They get some good exercise in their legs, arms and hands.

What is the real unemployment rate?

It's been seen at being around 4%, which is pretty good. However, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco points out that "This represents about 1.4 million additional individuals who are stuck in part-time jobs. These numbers imply that the level of involuntary part-time work is about 40% higher than would normally be expected at this point in the economic expansion.". Mass unemployment — the historic kind, with dole queues, unemployment benefits, and idle workers on street corners — has been replaced by low-paid, part-time, "gig economy" or "zero-hours" contract work.

Finger nails you've never seen before

Do we need an arms control treaty?

Stop wasting food

Marrying a dog

Well, not really. But she was able to get her story in the NY Times wedding section yesterday. "Lilly Smartelli, 55, of Phoenix, is dreaming about marrying her best friend, Bernie, who happens to be her dog. The reality is that she is dying from a form of pulmonary fibrosis, a respiratory disease. She donated a kidney 12 years ago to a childhood friend in Detroit and is still trying to save lives, while at the same time, keeping alive her own childhood dream: to know the joy of a wedding day.

But there will be no actual wedding day. She is pushing the idea of marrying a dog as a fund-raising event that will draw attention to organ-donor groups and animal welfare shelters that lack proper funding, “and still get to experience the thrill of having a wedding, even if it’s a fake wedding.” She is 'marrying' Bernie, a 9-year-old cocker spaniel-poodle mix.

We're ranked #22....

when it comes to corruption, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2018. The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people. We rank below Luxembourg, Estonia and France. 

Zoe Reiter, Acting Representative to the U.S. at Transparency International said this about the report: “A four point drop in the CPI score is a red flag and comes at a time when the US is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances, as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power. If this trend continues, it would indicate a serious corruption problem in a country that has taken a lead on the issue globally. This is a bipartisan issue that requires a bipartisan solution.”

Retiring from Retirement

Some interesting charts

via the BBC

$11 billion down the drain

That's what CBO estimates was the result of reduced economic activity caused by the shutdown. GDP in the fourth quarter of 2018 was down by $3 billion and $8 billion in the first quarter of 2019.

What will an emergency shutdown cost us?

The Longest War

3-D printing manufactured goods?

16 and speaking strongly about climate change

Greta Thunberg is a 16-year-old Swedish student who is really pushing our leaders to act about climate change. Every Friday she stands impatiently on the threshold of powerful institutions making the case for zero carbon. She has convinced 100,000 fellow teens around the world to follow her example in striking for the climate. 

“At Davos, people like to talk about success, but financial success has come with a price tag, and on the climate we have failed. And unless we recognize the failures of our system, there will be unspoken suffering.”

She was able to make a presentation to the World Economic Forum.



Was this a PR bit by the Forum? Or, will some thing really happen?

Thanks to a fellow Duncaster resident for making me aware of Thunberg's work.

Dog earns a master's degree

Clarkson University just awarded a Master's degree to Griffin Hawley, a Golden Retriever. He happens to be a service dog of another graduate, a woman.

This is not the first time Clarkson has done this. Their raison d'etre:

Clarkson University welcomes service animals trained to assist people in all aspects of education, research, and campus life. The Board of Trustees recognized that Griffin has demonstrated extraordinary effort, steadfast commitment, and diligent dedication to the wellbeing and student success of his owner Brittany. The two have pursued 100% together a graduate degree in Occupational Therapy attending all the same classes, lectures, faculty appointments, group study sessions, social activities, research projects, and clinical experiences, fully making Griffin an equal member of the Clarkson Golden Knights family.

More to worry about

Something to do in your old age

Should we start to worry about the economy?

Significant housing declines have foreshadowed nine of the 11 post-World War II recessions in the US. In December, US existing-home sales declined to 4.99 million, 10.3% below the mark from the year-ago period, according to data released earlier this week by the National Association of Realtors. That's the steepest decline in more than seven years, and it followed year-over-year declines of 7.8% in November and 5.1% in October. Home sales dropped in every month in 2018 except February, but the trend grew more aggressive in the final quarter of the year.

Some banks are showing problems. At Wells Fargo, mortgage-banking income fell by 50%, to $467 million, in the fourth quarter, while originations declined by 28%, to $38 billion. JPMorgan saw mortgage income fall to $203 million, a 46% drop from the same period last year. Originations fell by 30%, to $17.2 billion.

Eat more carbs

You may be hearing that in the future. In Okinawa they have a high ratio of carbohydrates to protein (10:1) in their diet. Yet, they have the longest life expectancy of anyone on Earth and the vast majority of those years are lived in remarkably good health too. For every 100,000 inhabitants, Okinawa has 68 centenarians – more than three times the numbers found in US populations of the same size. Even by the standards of Japan, Okinawans are remarkable, with a 40% greater chance of living to 100 than other Japanese people.

Some studies have shown that a low protein, high carbohydrate diet sets off various physiological responses that protect us from various age-related illnesses – including cancer, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease. And the Okinawan Ratio may achieve the optimal dietary balance to achieve those effects. 

The typical Okinawan centenarian appeared to be free of the typical signs of cardiovascular disease, without the build-up of the hard “calcified” plaques around the arteries that can lead to heart failure. Okinawa’s oldest residents also have far lower rates of cancer, diabetes and dementia than other ageing populations.

They have a relatively rare gene variant - APOE4 - which decreases the risk of heart disease and Alzheimer’s. They may also be more likely to carry a protective variant of the FOXO3 gene involved in regulating metabolism and cell growth. This results in a shorter stature but also appears to reduce the risk of various age-related diseases, including cancer.

Okinawans are less likely to smoke than most populations, and since they worked predominantly in agriculture and fishing, they were also physically active. Their tight-knit communities also help the residents to maintain an active social life into old age. Social connection has also been shown to improve health and longevity by reducing the body’s stress responses to challenging events. (Loneliness, in contrast, has been shown to be as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.)

Although they do eat pork, fish and other meats, these are typically a small component of their overall consumption, which is mostly plant-based foods.
The traditional Okinawan diet is therefore dense in the essential vitamins and minerals - including anti-oxidants - but also low in calories. Particularly in the past, before fast food entered the islands, the average Okinawan ate around 11% fewer calories than the normal recommended consumption for a healthy adult.

Growing up

Americans crossing the Mexican border

6,000 Americans cross the border from Yuma to the Mexican town of Los Algodones. They are seeking mainly dental care,but also vision care and prescription drugs. And they get it in Los Algodones, where there are more dentists per capita than anywhere else in the world.

Approximately 74 million people in the US (nearly a quarter of the population) have no dental insurance, according to the National Association of Dental Plans. Most dental plans don’t cover much at all beyond regular check-ups, cleaning, X-rays and fillings. Beyond that, patients are expected to fork over much of the cost of large but common procedures like crowns, root canals and implants. Dental plans also generally pay a maximum of $1,500 annually, a number that’s hardly changed in 50 years. And $1,500 doesn’t go far when you consider the cost of major dental work. The cost of a single crown can be as much as $2,000 and the cost of an implant can run $5,000 a tooth.

Dental work in Mexico is on average two-thirds less than in the US and customers may save 80 percent or more on some costly operations. Those savings derive partially from Mexico’s less expensive real estate and labor costs, but also, Mexico’s dentists don’t graduate with a ton of student debt.

A winter swim

Warming the Barents Sea

How long will the super volcano sleep?

Forget the anesthesia

Oxfam's latest report

The planet’s richest people saw their fortunes soar by $2.5 billion per day last year as the world’s poorest lost wealth. 

26 billionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people combined.

The number of billionaires has doubled since the global financial crisis of 2008, even as average families have struggled mightily to recover. 

The wealth of the world’s poorest fell by $500 million each day in 2018—an overall decline of 11 percent.

Working with the Border Patrol

"Water is strange"

Decline of the empire

Every empire eventually fails. Does the quality of the leaders have anything to do with failure? Do you think our leaders can prevent our failure?

Which is the oddest?

A swimming companion

Is the world ending?

Listening to the tv you might think so. A storm is forecasted to be on its way here on Sunday. And it is pitched as though we in New England have never experienced such a storm. I think the storm caused by the government shutdown or the possibility of Trump's telling Cohen to lie to Congress is much more severe.

Life in Yemen outside the war zone

Another Andrew Johnson?

A cat lover

Skateboarding for all

Is the EPA taking it easy?

He also likes mercury

Sunday I wrote a brief post questioning Andrew Wheeler's, the head of the EPA, liking of hamburgers. It looks as though he also likes mercury. which is a quite dangerous pollutant. Most of our mercury comes from the smokestacks of electric companies using coal. In 2012, the EPA took steps to lower the production of mercury by causing power plants to use 'scrubbers' to remove mercury from the emissions before they leave the smokestack. Since the rule went into effect, electric companies have cut mercury emissions by nearly 90 percent, according to the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group.

Mr. Wheeler wants to change this rule by rewriting the way costs and benefits are evaluated. Surprisingly, the nation’s electric utility industry is siding with the EPA since the industry found that implementation cost far less than they had anticipated. Further, since the rule was finalized, the science documenting the severe health impacts of mercury has become even stronger. New studies show that the quantified benefits of reducing mercury are now in the billions of dollars; a study published in the journal Environmental Health in 2017 estimated that the societal costs associated with the neurocognitive deficits from methylmercury exposure in the United States that year was $4.8 billion.

Our president

You really should read this article by Annie Lowrey in the Atlantic.

The president owns a business.

The president owns a business entity composed of roughly 500 other business entities.

The president owns a business entity that he no longer controls, but his sons do.

The president owns a business entity set up to allow him to withdraw funds “at his request.”

The president owns a business entity designed to reduce his tax burden, shift risk, and maximize profits. There is no independent public accounting of the machinations of this business entity, nor do his sons and other company managers answer to a White House ethics board. The company remains a company, meant to make money for the president.

The president is still heavily invested in any number of industries his government regulates, including real estate, tourism, and hospitality. The president passed tax cuts with specific carve-outs for real-estate developers.

The president’s company operates a hotel just a few blocks from the White House. Foreign dignitaries have spent thousands of dollars there, as has his inaugural committee, as have Republican politicians and lobbyists, though there is no complete and transparent accounting available. This translates into additional profits for the president.

The president’s company manages, owns, or operates numerous other hotels. Government agencies have spent thousands of dollars staying at them during his presidency, enriching the president with revenue collected from taxpayers.

The president’s organization has said it donates the profits from “foreign government patronage” at those hotels. It has not identified its customers or provided a detailed accounting of how and how much money it has made from foreign patrons.

Throughout his time in the White House, the president has continued to own shares in a number of individual companies, including Halliburton and Apple. His government taxes and regulates those firms.

The president has business interests in countries around the globe, countries with which he sets trade, security, economic, and diplomatic relations. These include the United Arab Emirates, Canada, India, and Turkey.

The president owns a Florida resort and social club that has become his Camp David. The social club has raised membership prices and sold tickets to events with the promise of access to the president.

The president runs a personal charity. The New York attorney general said she found a “shocking pattern of illegality” there, “including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.” The charity is now dissolving.

The president runs a now-dissolving personal charity that for years donated to other charities, many of them seemingly linked to the president or his businesses. Its largest gift went to restore a fountain outside one of the president’s hotels, and its smallest appears to have paid for one of his sons’ Boy Scouts dues.

The president seeded his investments with inheritances from his father. The president committed tax fraud when inheriting his father’s fortune, an exhaustive New York Times investigation found.

The president’s real-estate projects are alleged or have been found to have misled investors and potential investors. That includes projects in the Dominican Republic, Canada, Panama, and the United States.

The president and his staff members have promoted the president’s personal brand dozens of times.

The president has not sold off controversial investments, foreign investments, investments in industries he now regulates, or investments in businesses that receive payments from the United States government or foreign governments. He is the first modern president to decline to do so.

The president has not put his investments in a blind trust. He is the first modern president with substantial financial interests to decline to do so.

The president has never released his tax returns. He is the first modern president to decline to do so.

He's at it again

John Bolton is trying to foment war. Something he's been doing for most of his career. This time it's war with Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported that he "asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran last year, generating concern at the Pentagon and State Department."

Trump is also after Iran. He has ditched the Iran nuclear deal—formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—and reimposed economic sanctions. 

My biggest fear re Trump is that he will start another war.

Paying the boss

Snow Sculptures

Morning in Bloomfield

He likes hamburgers

The new head of the EPA, Andrew Wheeler, is an investor in Upshur Burger Concepts, which runs a hamburger joint, Lucky Buns, in D.C. The restaurant allows him to have up to $2,000 per month in free hamburgers, as they do with all of their investors. But why didn't Wheeler disclose this investment in his nominee financial disclosure report? Is there something about being head of the EPA that makes you do stupid things, ala Scott Pruitt?

Another poor score

That is the U.S. did not do well in the 2018 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index. The index is based on 60 indicators spanning five interrelated categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Each category gets a 0-10 score, with the final score being the average of those five.

Our score of 7.96 put is in 25th place. The leaders were Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Denmark. They were declared "full democracies.

Are monarch butterflies disappearing?

It looks that way according to a study by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit group that conducts a yearly census of the western monarch. Their study concluded that the population decreased by 86 percent from the previous year. This goes along with the fact that, since the 1980s, the total population has decreased 97 percent. 

It looks that part of the problem is the decline in the availability of milkweed, the monarch's favorite food. This has happened because of pesticide use and urban development, as well as the droughts that have afected Calfornia since 2011.

One approach to drug addiction

Glad I'm not a brewer of craft beer

One section of the Treasury Department is the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. One of its tasks is to review labels on cans, bottles, and kegs of all wine, malt beverages, beer, and distilled spirits in the United States, ensuring they carry information like the alcohol content by volume and the Surgeon General’s warning. Well, the shutdown has prevented this from happening.

There are thousands of new beers introduced in most years. Normally, the labels are approved within three weeks of submission; selling can begin. And the brewer can start getting back some money on his investment. But now who knows when, if ever, the beer will be on the market? 

A loving couple

Glad I'm not a government contract worker

Regular government workers will eventually get paid for this shutdown period. Government contractors will not and it is estimated there are about 4,100,000 of them. (per NPR Morning Edition today.)

A country with fewer crimes

Too much emphasis on men's bodies?

Glad I don't need food stamps

If I was one of the 38 million who do, I'd worry about next month. If the shutdown continues into February, it's unlikely that I'll receive my stamps.

Walking after 30 years

Protecting crocodiles

Glad I'm not flying

The TSA is reporting an increasing amount of employees calling in sick. At JFK 170 called in each day so far this week. At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, employee call outs increased between 200 and 300 percent. These employees are among those not being paid.

Is this the beginning of a major campaign?

China goes to the dark side

Hell on our borders

I've written several times about the horrors of Gaza. Living there is living in hell on earth. Well, it now looks like hell has come to North America. As described by Francisco Cantu, who once worked for the Border Patrol, it is hard to imagine life there. You're living in a military zone where everything is surveilled. Laws and rights are applied differently there than in any other part of the country.

"At immigration checkpoints between distant desert towns, automated cameras snap mugshots of you behind the wheel, and uniformed agents nod at drivers with light skin, waving them on to “have a nice day,” while requiring those who are darker to prove their status, to explain their presence, and, often, to step out of their vehicles while agents rummage through their belongings and invite drug-sniffing dogs to crawl across their car seats. On the open highway, you pass multitudes of green-striped border patrol vehicles driving in either direction, often too many to keep count. Signs warn of “Danger” and advise “Travel Not Recommended,” cautioning travelers that “Smuggling and Illegal Immigration May Be Encountered in This Area” or “Visitors May Encounter Armed Criminals and Smuggling Vehicles Traveling at High Rates of Speed.” Observation towers and trucks equipped with radar and infrared cameras can be seen stationed upon surrounding hilltops, monitoring the desert in every direction. Away from roads, if you are bold enough to go hiking on desert trails, you might encounter low-flying helicopters overhead, reporting your location to nearby agents."

Starlings in Israel

The shapes moving in the sky are really birds. Every year starlings from Russia and Eastern Europe winter in Israel.