* This is an archive of my own blog and online notes, with weekly entries collected by month. The current week in stand-alone format is available here. Feel free to CONTACT ME if so inclined.
DAYLOG MON 27 JAN 25: As discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("The parting of water" by Robert F. Service, 23 jan 25), there's been a lot of interest in "green hydrogen" -- hydrogen fuels produced by renewable energy -- but not so much progress in production.
At present, only about a million tonnes of green hydrogen is produced a year, not even a single percent of the perceived need. Hydrogen is produced in large quantities, but overwhelmingly using natural gas, which is hardly a "green" process.
Green hydrogen is primarily dependent on "electrolyzers", chemical cells that split water into hydrogen and oxygen -- they're the bottleneck. Costs have been steadily dropping, with the US Department of Energy (DOE) driving a program to cut costs to $1/kilogram by 2031.
The leading electrolyzer technology today is the "alkaline water electrolyzer". It is a cell with two electrodes in an electrolyte separated by a semipermeable membrane. Applying a voltage across the electrodes breaks down water into H2 & O2. The AWE can get by with relatively cheap nickel or stainless-steel catalysts. However, it doesn't do well with intermittent renewable power sources, and scaling up output is tricky. Researchers are tinkering with tricks to see if the obstacles can be overcome.
The runner-up today is the "proton-exchange membrane (PEM)" electrolyzer, which reverses the applied voltage, and dumps the electrolyte for a solid polymer. PEM handles irregular power and is easier to scale up. Unfortunately, it is much more vulnerable to corrosion and is accordingly expensive to build. There's also "anion exchange membrane (AEM)" electrolyzers, but they aren't as far along and have challenges, too.
If green hydrogen production is scaled up, there's the question of building the storage and transport infrastructure for it -- which is at least an understood issue. Those working in the field see it has challenges, but do not see them as insurmountable.
DAYLOG TUE 28 JAN 25: I went to bed last night feeling the bad news of everything way too much, not getting a good night's sleep. I was thinking: Why not just cave in? That led eventually to the follow-on question: What does that mean?
Further consideration led to the conclusion: See it all out to the end. Yeah, things are going badly, but the Trump Gang pretends to be much bigger and badder than it really is. I'm looking forward to the push-back, and it will happen. We'll get more things going our way, we'll win some. What will happen in the end? I don't know. Chances are good I'll outlive Trump, so there's that.
Trump goes, that's half the battle. In the meantime, I keep a low profile and see what I can make of myself. Funny is that I get worried -- and then suddenly it stops, and I go back to normal. I didn't used to be like that.
* Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said in an interview that Ukraine made a big mistake in giving up its nuclear weapons -- to which I replied on BlueSky that nuclear Ukraine was a myth. The Russians had full control over those weapons and weren't going to hand them over. Ukraine had no capability to support a nuclear force and they would have been a practical liability -- but maintained a fiction that they were Ukraine's to get help in disposing of them.
The Budapest Memorandum outlined the terms. The Budapest Memorandum did not provide security guarantees -- it just said the signatories would not attack Ukraine, and they would consult with each other if one of them decided to do so. The Russians broke the agreement; the Western partners decided to provide military aid. Of course, that didn't mean going to war with Russia; NATO is a defensive alliance and has no mandate for doing that.
In response to my comments, some people loudly objected -- but they were all making stuff up, with no recourse to facts. You're not trying to have a real discussion here, are you? I blocked them all immediately.
What is Zelenskyy trying to do by making such false assertions? I think he's just trying to ease the pressure of the war on himself. That's understandable, but still exasperating.
DAYLOG WED 29 JAN 25: Ukraine's long-range drone attacks on Russian assets appears to be ramping up considerably in the new year, with reports of strikes two or three times a week. The attacks are targeting chemical plants and in particular oil infrastructure.
Two of Russia's biggest refineries, at Ryazan and Niznhy Novgorod, were recently hit, with Russian air defenses unable to cope -- they've just got too much to protect. Ukrainian officials believe that, if this pace can be maintained, Russia will be on its knees in 6 months. There are also, very plausible, reports that Russia is facing a "tsunami" of bankruptcies. Trump is acting very indecisive, even by his generous standards, on Ukraine; if he decides to fully back Ukraine, Putin is going to feel doomed.
What will Putin do if he runs out of options? Flee the country? We'll just have to wait and see. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. Not incidentally, I suspect the Biden Administration played a lot of tricks to limit Trump's actions. I know they worked with NATO to set up a loan program for up to $50 billion USD, paid off by returns on frozen Russian funds, via the World Bank. Now, does that mean the World Bank has control of the frozen funds? So Trump can't give them back to Putin? Hmm.
* Somebody on BlueSky was saying nice things about Chuck Schumer, so I chimed in myself, saying he was good at what he did: "He's hard to argue with, since he won't shut up." Person came back with a confusing response, it seems asking if that were an antisemitic comment.
I replied with: "Huh? What? What kind of silly question is that?" He got mad; I promptly blocked him. Seeking pretexts for offense is a particularly strange kind of trolling, easily cured by blocking. He disappeared forever from my BlueSky space.
DAYLOG THU 30 JAN 25: Trump made some typical mindless comments about chasing all the Palestinians out of Gaza, sending them to Jordan and Egypt. Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ("AFeS") did not like that idea at all, saying it would be an "act of injustice".
It certainly would, but AFeS was almost certainly more concerned about having to take care of a flood of refugees -- and worse, subjects of the Hamas Islamic terrorist organization. Egypt doesn't need that kind of trouble.
Miraculously, the cease-fire in Gaza seems to be holding. If it doesn't, the Israelis will more or less exterminate the Palestinians there, with Trump not lifting a finger to stop them. The Israelis might even go on to overrun the West Bank.
The more interesting, if highly speculative, question is: what happens if it does hold? Hamas made a lunatic bet, greatly provoking the Israelis without having the ability to do them decisive harm. Hamas got the response they could have expected to get. Will that lead over the longer run to a better state of things? Hamas knows what will happen if they provoke the Israelis again. Might there be a change in mindset? Not that it could get anywhere for decades; the Israelis are not in a forgiving mood.
* I wrote on BlueSky that Joe Biden was stuck on Gaza: "After the Hamas attack, he had to back Israel or be put down for not doing so -- but then he had to restrain the Israelis, & few of them wanted to be restrained."
Somebody came back griping about "Genocide Joe". I blocked him without reading the full entry -- I don't need that hassle. Somebody else did try to argue with him, so I added: "Joe Biden was in an impossible position, having to back the Israelis while having long angry conversations with Netanyahu. The Israelis would say they were making concessions, then forget they said it."
He got back to me: "I read over and over again that it was Biden's genocide, while NOT once seeing Netanyahu's name associated with it. These voters didn't see that they were being played, as social media users erased Bibi from the crime -- all in order to re-elect his closest ally, who saw beachfront condos."
Further comments discussed TV ads in which Kamala was praised for her single-minded dedication to Israel, with her Jewish husband Doug played up as a Zionist. That should have sounded suspicious in the first place; what made it more suspicious is that these ads were being played in Arab-American locales. It seems likely they were funded by Elon the Musk Rat. Most of the people who swallowed them now refuse to admit they were taken for a ride.
DAYLOG FRI 31 JAN 25: For lack of much better to do with myself in these apocalyptic times, I've been doing a lot of reorganization to settle in for the long haul. I've been giving a lot of things up. I've been trying to teach myself Japanese literally for decades. One thing I got into doing was building language flashcards -- which was too time-consuming and, I finally realized, not very effective. It was a dead end, and a few days back I dropped it.
Along the same lines, I've been constructing a Japanese dictionary and an extensive grammar reference document. I should make much better progress now. I decided to also make new flashcards, complementing the dictionary; I can quickly put them together, using Gemini to generate useful text and an online Japanese dictionary to get images of the characters. It's something positive in my life, when things aren't going well for us.
BACK_TO_TOPDAYLOG MON 03 FEB: Last week the prospect of a Nazi takeover of the USGOV left the realm of comic books and became a frightening reality, with Elon the Musk Rat personally invading USGOV agencies, taking them over, and wrecking them.
If worst comes to worst, what might be done? The only thing I can think of that could work is for the Blue states to get together and declare a Constitutional government under Kamala & Tim. They would then work to get USGOV agencies under their control. The military would be first on the list, to provide security for the other agencies. I passed the idea on to the CO governor and senators. Crazy idea? Maybe less crazy in time, but alas I still don't see it happening. The idea needs to be there in any case.
* Things are crazy NOW & getting worse. Much will be happening this week, with Congress checking out what the Musk Rat has been doing, lawsuits being pressed, and so on. The Trump Gang may back off a bit. Trump appears to be softening on his tariffs war -- it's been getting consistently bad reviews. However, the Trump Gang has had no problem with criming so far, and I'm not expecting them to change their ways. They wouldn't be criming if they had any intention of quitting.
Incidentally, the Musk Rat's raids on USGOV have been aided by a gang of his techs. WIRED identified them and published details. The Musk Rat was outraged, calling it a "crime". More criminal projection from the Musk Rat.
DAYLOG TUE 04 FEB: Trump called off his trade wars with Mexico and Canada for a month, proclaiming victory after getting concessions. In reality, he wasn't getting anything new. Mexico repeatedly deployed troops to the border region during the Biden Administration. It seems that Trump agreed to help stop US guns from going across the border. Similarly, Canada's $1.3 billion USD border protection bill, praised by Trump, was actually introduced in December.
Another item is that Trump has been playing up is a deal with Ukraine to bring the US to the head of the line for Ukraine's rare-earth elements. Actually, the deal had been cooked up during the Biden Administration, but wasn't signed until Trump came into office. The rare earths, it seems, are mostly in the Donbas, under Russian occupation. Trump neither knows nor cares about such things; it's all about the theatrics. He does seem to be peculiarly hung up on tariffs, thinking them a magic cure-all, but they always prove unworkable.
It is likely this is all about distraction anyway, as the Trump Gang reduces the Federal government to chaos. Nobody seems to be able to stop it or even slow it down, but it's hard to think of what might be done. The Black Hats have the easier job: they just wreck things. The only thing that can be done to stop them right away is military intervention, but on thinking it out, I don't see that happening, either.
DAYLOG WED 05 FEB: Bibi Netanyahu visited the White House yesterday, with Trump proclaiming that the USA would "take over" Gaza and turn it into another Riviera. It was not clear how that would happen. Also left unsaid was what would happen to the Palestinians.
Absolutely nobody missed that significant omission, everyone knowing it meant getting rid of the Palestinians in some unspecified way. There was a lot of outrage -- but it really looks like more Trump distraction, conducted while the Musk Rat tears down the US government.
* Since I can't be worried sick all day, I keep trying to stay occupied with other things. KYIV INDEPENDENT wrote up an article on Ukrainian ground drones -- little tracked vehicles used for combat, mining & demining, logistics, medevac, and so on. ARS TECHNICA had a comparable article on air drones, one test unit having two shotguns to blast other drones. Another drone, the "Plisch", has a long extensible radio mast to provide relay or electronic warfare. The war drags on -- for how much longer?
DAYLOG THU 06 FEB: Strange glimmers keep coming through the chaos in Washington DC. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was earlier saying he was talking to Panamanian officials about "undue Chinese influence" [say what?] in Panama, and is now saying the US won't have to pay tolls for the canal. Panamanian officials say that's nonsense. Rubio is also saying that there will be exemptions to the end of USAID. I conclude that the Trump Gang is throwing out still more noise as a distraction.
The USAID exemptions are all for the good if we got them, but who believes anything the Trump Gang says? They only tell the truth by accident. It does seem like dotty old Trump really thinks he's serious when he says crazy things, but his people just humor him.
The crazy ideas are still very troublesome. Trump has been talking about developing Gaza; the Israelis are now talking about facilitating "voluntary relocations" by Palestinians from Gaza. There seems to be a tie there. The idea is monstrous.
PS: Rubio says the USA won't go to the G20 summit in South Africa, saying South African support for diversity and climate-change action is "anti-American". No diversity in RSA? The ocean isn't slowly flooding out his state of Florida? He knows better.
* One Kevin Kruse was snarkily saying on BlueSky:
"Musk isn't going to obey the law, so who cares?"
"The Supreme Court will just throw out the case, so who cares?"
"Republicans aren't going to let us have elections, so who cares?"
Kruse adds: "I'm blocking these people on sight now. Doomerist defeatism isn't helping anyone here." Point taken, stay on positive and do whatever we can, no matter how petty. I get bummed out; better I think to get on track and face the long haul.
The Trump Gang has big weaknesses: they're ignorant, inept, & stupid. Things look really bad right now, but there are glimmers of hope. Big demonstration in front of Treasury Building on Tuesday; demonstrations are likely to get bigger.
DAYLOG FRI 07 FEB: I'm bobbing up and down these days. I was feeling remarkably upbeat last night -- not because things are going well, they're not, but because I can only stand to be a nervous wreck for so long. I'm better off in all respects to feel upbeat.
I have ideas of what might help us, but they're just ideas on which I can rest no weight. They tend to be unrealistic, along with being unconstitutional. Tough as it is, we have to play by the rules even if the Trump Gang never does: we can't repair the Constitution by breaking it ourselves. We're stuck with the gangsters for some time, maybe longer than I'll be around. If nothing else, I endure. I'll wait to see if, sometimes, I can make a difference.
* One John Ganz, writing on his blogsite, thinks that comparing the Trump regime to Nazi Germany is off the mark. Ganz thinks it's something thoroughly nasty, but much less formidable: Vichy France.
That makes sense: instead of the bullying juggernaut of Naziism, we've got the fake giant Trump, surrounded by real pygmies. There's no honest enthusiasm among his supporters -- they're just puny, cynical, nihilistic crybabies, always miserably complaining about everything. They're fascists, but mixed in with old-style conservatives who have simply decided to not pretend to have principles any longer, plus tech broligarchs motivated by greed and megalomania. "Vichy America" is not a juggernaut: it is simply decadent and pathetic.
Ganz of course admits things are bad, but he wonders if the Trump Gang, having blitzed the first line of America's defenses, will bog down in deeper defenses. We'll see. In the meantime, like I say online these days: "Do not surrender in advance."
* I wrote on BlueSky: "Here in Loveland CO, there's a Cybertruck running around town. I get the feeling that in a year or two, Cybertrucks will have disappeared, having been spray-painted and otherwise trashed to death."
I added: "A metaphor for the Trump-Musk regime? Do they really have any staying power?" Another reason to endure: surprising things, some good ones, are gonna happen, I want to be here for them. In the end, the crisis has to be seen as a test of personal character. Again: don't surrender in advance.
BACK_TO_TOPDAYLOG MON 10 FEB: It's very difficult to write about anything at this time except the national crisis -- what else matters? The Trump Gang continues its willful and criminal flaunting of the law, the latest being Trump's mad ramblings about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
I was thinking mass demonstrations will be ramping up, and all evidence says they are -- with comments including: But what if Trump sends in the troops? To which I wonder: How many will join the protests? There's not a lot of enthusiasm for Trump in USGOV.
I keep thinking of crazy possibilities for getting out of this jam, but they don't go anywhere. However, with everything going south at a rapid rate, the crazy seems increasingly plausible. In the meantime, I keep my head above water.
DAYLOG TUE 11 FEB: Events continue on the same track, the Trump Gang spreading destruction. Texas Rep Jasmine Crockett has been busily filing lawsuits to try to slow them down, though the Trump Gang has been consistently ignoring all lawsuits and the courts. However, I'm still happy with Crockett, and am all for the lawsuits; they've got to be exhausted before moving on to the next step, whatever that may be.
One question that has been raised: What are the ex-presidents doing? The silence has been deafening. Some are unhappy about it, but I'm thinking it's more like they're engaged in intensive conversation with each other and with other major players.
One of the major players is, of course, SCOTUS, and communications with the liberal justices are likely in progress. If the Trump Gang ignores SCOTUS, could SCOTUS tell Federal employees not to obey illegal orders? Sure, people complain about SCOTUS, saying they won't cross the Trump Gang -- but I don't think SCOTUS wants to be thrown on the trash heap, and certainly isn't happy with being insulted.
But what, so the doomsayers ask, about the "absolute presidential immunity" granted by SCOTUS? That's misunderstood, it's only for "official acts", and blatantly illegal acts aren't covered. Yes, SCOTUS gets a lot of interpretation in that -- but they did before.
One of the interesting aspects of the Crisis is that the Trump Gang is bullying the Federal bureaucracy, and so has no substantial support in it. The Trump Gang has serious weaknesses, and that's one of the biggest. So what next? I don't know. Wait and see.
DAYLOG WED 12 FEB: Yesterday, there was a press conference with Trump and Elon the Musk Rat in the Oval Office. It seemed significant in that the Musk Rat did the talking, with Trump looking very grumpy about things. It looked suspiciously like the Musk Rat was showing off who the boss really was.
* As if we didn't have enough to worry about, ARS TECHNICA reports that GAI chatbots like Google Gemini are vulnerable to what is called "prompt injection", in which a clever prompt tricks the chatbot into doing things it shouldn't, such as search for and report secure emails. The poison prompts can infect the chatbot on a long-term basis. The only cure, it seems, is to train the chatbot not to break the rules -- which is an open-ended task. We're stuck with this for a while.
DAYLOG THU 13 FEB: The Trump Gang is continuing on its "Ukraine Peace" initiative by effectively declaring a partnership with Russia to that end. It's like they don't care that everyone sees they're working for Putin. Will the US drop sanctions?
What, however, will the Trump Gang do to Ukraine? They'll cut off aid, but that's to be expected. Can they do more? Sanction Ukraine? Fortunately, Ukraine gets oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, so cutting it off might be tricky. The EU says they'll continue aid -- will it be enough?
* There's a lot of complaining on BlueSky that Congressional Dems aren't doing enough to stop Trump. Since the GOP owns Congress -- and Trump owns the GOP -- there's not so much the Dems can do. They have been leading street protests.
The complainers say the Dems could do more to obstruct, but exactly what? Some asked for quorum-breaking in the House, but that's ignorant: in the House, a quorum is a simple majority, and the GOP has that. I assume that the Dems are doing all they can really do -- and they may be working on things they can't talk about.
* Stress levels continue high at home, to the point my brain does funny things to me at times. My bottom line, however, is to quietly persist and see what happens. We're in unknown territory, I don't know what will happen, but things will happen. I just don't know WHAT or WHEN.
My mind goes in circles, nothing much comes out of the circles; they're not really important. I wonder if listing "Crisis Day 25" seems too optimistic, like things will happen quickly. No, they'll take as long as it takes: "Day 250", even "Day 2500" -- almost 7 years. I'm trying not to be a nervous wreck and stay involved in my work, because there's nothing else I can do.
DAYLOG FRI 14 FEB: I woke up this morning and was feeling fairly upbeat -- because I had forgotten what was going overnight. Once I remembered, I wasn't so upbeat. The news today coming out of the USA white supremacy regime is uniformly dismal.
One bright item today is that the Trump Gang made some sort of a deal with NY Mayor Eric Adams, being prosecuted for corruption. What was the deal? Not clear, but it involved dismissing the prosecution. The trick was that prosecutors publicly resigned rather than do it. With enough threats, they did get someone to do it.
The world seems full of insurmountable problems right now, but there's only one big problem to be concerned with for the moment. As far as the others go, who knows if they'll work out or not? Take them one at a time, and disregard the useless worries.
* KYIV INDEPENDENT had an article on Ukrainian drone makers, such as Molfar, which makes quadcopter killer drones like the "Molfar". They've done work with drone swarming, and they use lower frequencies for the comlink -- which are harder to detect and jam.
Skyfall makes the big "Vampire" quadcopter -- known to Russians as "Baba Yaga" -- which is a bomber drone, dropping mortar bombs and the like. It uses a thermal imager from the Oko ("Eye") company.
There's also the sleek "Shark" scout drone from UkrSpec, and the boxy "AQ 400 Scythe" long range k-drone from Terminal Autonomy. Of course it's boxy, it's made of plywood, and cheap for drone of its capability.
Last but not least, the long-standing Antonov company makes the "AN-196 Lyuty" long-range k-drone. It's expensive, at about $200,000 USD each, but is the mainstay of Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. It may have countermeasures to help it reach targets.
BACK_TO_TOPDAYLOG MON 17 FEB: Come the new week, the USA's Trump trouble continues unrelieved, and dealing with it continues to be troublesome as well. Same answer as before: persist until things start looking up. It's the best that can be done.
LINCOLN PROJECT ran a video suggesting that viewers contact their state AG office to encourage them to press lawsuits for the Musk Rat's invasion of data systems. I went to the Colorado AG office online to find they were doing so, and thanked them for their diligence.
Yeah, there's little things we can still do. I'm wondering if the states can press criminal charges on the Musk rat. The Federal judiciary could in principle deputize state LEO to allow them to operate in all national jurisdiction.
George Conway says: "This country has seen some bad moments in the 61 years ... I've been on this Earth. But it has never, ever before come close to the supertoxic level of stupidity, mendacity, narcissism, nihilism, and moral apathy that threaten to destroy it today."
DAYLOG TUE 18 FEB: One of the main components of the Trump Gang's rampage has been its assault on DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion). The significant example is big-box retailer Costco, which has made its commitment to DEI publicly known.
In response, 19 Red state AGs are now legally going after Costco. Can the company stand fast? It would seem it's on solid constitutional grounds, but the courts are unpredictable these days. I'm thinking there's a need to establish a national "DEI Alliance", with its members pooling resources to push back in court. There is an "Alliance for Global Inclusion", but it looks more like an HR effort. Something tougher may be needed.
The Trump Gang is pursuing what might be called "Jim Crow Lite" -- just as mean-minded as the original, but without as much bite. It's a frontal attack on the civil rights movement. The tide is against it, it won't persist indefinitely, but we're stuck with it for now.
DAYLOG WED 19 FEB: Trump's talk of a "peace plan" for Ukraine was always dodgy, but now he's saying the "quiet part out loud": claiming Ukraine started the war, and that Ukraine should have elections soon.
There's no way elections could be sensibly conducted under the circumstances. Trump's comments led to consternation among European leadership -- French President Macron notably ruling out French "peacekeeping forces" in Ukraine, clearly seeing the idea as a farce.
Trump will certainly cut off aid to Ukraine, but can he do worse? Can he unfreeze Russian funds? Fortunately, of the roughly $300 billion USD of frozen Russian funds, only about $6 billion USD is in US hands, and it is possible Joe Biden quietly switched them to Europe. What else might Trump do? He is always up to no good, so it's hard to say what other tricks he might pull.
* Alas, nearly all the news is bad news these days. Yesterday, somebody on BlueSky asked curmudgeonly blogger Tom Nichols if a military counter-coup would be in order in the USA. Nichols replied: "Absolutely not!" General Mark Hertling seconded.
The US military cannot police the government. It does not have the authority, nor really the ability, to replace bad rulers; trying it would be banana-republic politics. It can't happen, it won't happen. I suggested to someone promoting a counter-coup that it would be like having head lice and setting one's hair on fire to get rid of them. He wanted to argue, I did not, so I blocked him. In any case, the USA is suffering an enormous amount of damage right now, and not all that much that we can do but soak it up.
The fundamental problem is that 77.3 million Americans voted for Trump, and even more wouldn't vote. There's a lot of people on BlueSky wanting a miracle fix for Trump -- but I don't think it's in the cards. If some group were to magically overthrow him, they would still have to deal with his support. Worse, the new regime would have a national train wreck to fix, and would be held responsible for all the bad things.
Bad things are happening, they're going to get worse, and the Trump Gang has to fully own it. Trump voters won't wise up and realize they've been swindled until things get very bad and Trump's support drops to rock bottom. It's not a question of letting it happen, it's more like it can't be stopped. The only silver lining is that the Trump Gang is so raggedy -- dim-witted, inept, disorganized -- and that works against them.
We have to do everything by the book, though innovative reading of the book may be in order. We do all we sensibly can, no matter how small, to limit the damage, push back, and prepare for renewal when the time comes. We get encouragement when people stand up.
DAYLOG THU 20 FEB: The Trump Gang continues their Putin-sided campaign for Ukraine peace, but it has become tiresome. Trump has clearly dropped US support for Ukraine, and now the gang is just parroting Russian propaganda. It's boring.
In an interview with Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania's foreign minister between 2020 and 2024, says that if there ever was the "last warning" for Europe, the crisis in Ukraine support is it -- adding that if Europe doesn't wake up, "we might have to declare it dead."
Landsbergis did note that the statements coming out of the Trump Administration are confused and contrary, adding: "I just hope Putin is as confused as we are." Everyone says Putin owns Trump, but Putin knows Trump is unstable, dim-witted, and has little sense of obligation. He says that whatever Trump does, it won't "change the reality on the ground." Landsbergis says that Europe has "a huge economy, 450 million people", while Russia's economy is "just the size of Spain's."
Landsbergis believes that it is important to bring Ukraine into the EU, and do it quickly. That was a distant prospect before Trump II, but maybe less so now. What about NATO membership? With Trump attacking NATO on principle, what does NATO amount to right now?
* Despite the ongoing crisis, I'm trying to act as if nothing in particular is going on. Yeah, I'm keeping up on what's happening, but other times it doesn't help me to worry. I've still got to get on with my life.
DAYLOG FRI 21 FEB: Elon the Musk Rat appeared at a CPAC meeting, where a video clip showed him wearing shades indoors, with his speech notably incoherent. The general conclusion was that he was high, maybe on ketamine, of which he is said to be fond.
This got a sequence of comments on BlueSky: "I wish he would take a lot more ketamine." "In a hot tub." "Holding a toaster." "On 5th Avenue." "With a bus coming." "And sharks with friggin' laser beams." Hey, we can get some humor out of this.
* There's still a lot of fuss over Trump's public alliance with Putin against Ukraine. Why there should be fuss is unclear, since anyone with sense has long known Trump is guaranteed to side with Putin. However, the fuss persists anyway, with continued talks between Ukraine and the Trump Gang. It was known that the 1st Trump Administration was notably chaotic; the mixed messages suggest the 2nd is well worse. Trump may be effectively out of it, with his people fighting among themselves.
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