Warning Order
06:33 Saturday, 1 March 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 50.94°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 250
Yesterday's catastrophe in the Oval Office feels, to me, to be an event of similar consequence as 9/11. To be sure, thousands of Americans haven't died, but who knows how many thousands of Europeans will?
The Iraq War was wrong, I don't agree with David Brooks that it was done out of "good intentions." In the worst ways, it may have helped shape and inform Donald Trump's adolescent, gangster view of the presidency.
But this is a new debasement of American values, America's reputation. We have aligned ourselves with the most malign entity on the world stage, Russia. In doing so, have encouraged and emboldened China.
We have made the world less safe everywhere.
And I feel powerless in this moment. I knew on 9/11 that the people who were responsible and those who harbored them would be held to some sort of account. It was far in excess of what was called for, and we're still dealing with the consequences. But we did respond.
In this moment, I feel helpless. I'm not confident that any meaningful opposition will appear within this country immediately, nor am I confident that the mid-terms will change the balance of power in Washington. There are too many "Americans" who are cheering this president on.
War is chaos.
Chaos can precede war.
We are in a chaotic moment. The evidence is clear by the lack of any meaningful response or opposition within this country. Everyone's just looking at their shoes.
Prepare accordingly.
✍️ Reply by emailWhat Now?
07:57 Saturday, 1 March 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 51.96°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 538
My interest in shortwave radio has waned somewhat. Partly because I'm looking forward to being able to experiment with different antennas when we get to New York, and I don't have an HOA telling me what I can't do in my backyard.
"In these uncertain times," I think you'd be wise to have a decent shortwave radio, and one with single sideband (SSB) capability. Nearly every radio sold today is a system on a chip device. They nearly all have excellent sensitivity and selectivity. Where they differ in design may be in poor choices regarding display shielding, where the LCD introduces noise into the circuit.
Good brands include C.Crane, Tecsun, and Sangean. There are some excellent brands out of China as well. (Most of them are manufactured in China, so buy now before the tariffs take effect.) The C.Crane Skywave SSB is a tiny device, but it will take an external antenna and is mostly intended for use with earbuds.
Why should you want a shortwave radio with SSB capability? Because normal means of communications may be disrupted. Much of the internet runs across the oceans on underwater cables, and Russia has been developing some capability with cutting those, and being pretty brazen about it as well. China likewise.
Many of the commercial broadcasts you can listen to on AM (amplitude modulation) shortwave from overseas may be propaganda from China. But if normal communications are disrupted, I expect we will see new stations emerging.
Single sideband gives you the ability to listen in on amateur radio operators. What you hear there may or may not be any more reliable than propaganda, but they are a different perspective.
The key thing with a shortwave radio is some kind of antenna, and it doesn't have to be something exotic or sophisticated. A long wire alligator clipped to the whip antenna of a radio without an external antenna connector will improve its reception.
You may want to look for one that takes AA batteries. Many, if not most these days, have some sort of lithium battery installed and charge over USB. But something like the Skywave will take ordinary alkaline AAs, or NiMH rechargeables (you will have to tell the radio which kind you have installed). Don't try to recharge lithium AAs in a radio that isn't designed to take them. Just pay attention to the battery warnings in the documentation.
It doesn't take a lot of power to communicate over vast distances. It's propagation that matters, not so much power. Propagation varies with time of day, solar activity and weather, so shortwave communications, or, more accurately "high frequency" (HF) communications aren't as reliable as tuning in your local AM or FM broadcast station. But long range and modest power requirements mean that HF communications are possible with modest amateur equipment.
While I'm thinking of it, I think any home in America today would be wise to have a hardcopy world atlas on hand.
We're all very dependent on the internet for basic information. The internet famously "routes around damage," but I wouldn't count on that anymore. Cables can be cut. Cyberattacks can take sites down. Musk owns Starlink.
"When I was your age, the internet was called books."
✍️ Reply by emailMeanwhile
08:39 Saturday, 1 March 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 53.53°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 1.99mph
Words: 218
We can't all be on high alert all the time, life does go on. I think we should all take some time to think about how the world has just changed, and what that may mean for us.
But you still have to "chop wood, carry water."
I sold the iMac yesterday. Got $850 for it, which wasn't bad. I looked at eBay and most of the ones like mine were selling north of $1K, around the $1200 range. I gather eBay takes an 18% cut, I'm not certain, so I listed it for $950 on FB Marketplace. Well, Mitzi listed it for me.
It basically sold within a couple of hours, though we didn't conclude the transaction until yesterday. New Mac user too. 3.6Ghz 8 core I9 with 128GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, should still be useful. I'd have kept it except for the size, which makes it impractical at Winterfell.
So now I'm fully dependent on this 14" M3 MBP with 24GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. I'm finding little things that I'd set up on the iMac weren't mirrored to the MBP and so I'm having to reinvent a few wheels. This has taught me that it's probably wiser, and more affordable, to rely on just one computer.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailWhat's There to Worry About?
11:35 Saturday, 1 March 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 55.76°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 265
What transpired yesterday in Washington was worse than Munich in 1938. It's Munich with nuclear weapons.
The Secretary of Defense has instructed CYBERCOM to cease planning cyber ops against Russia.
Trump has essentially handed Putin carte blanche to carry out his plans for domination of the European continent.
What about NATO?
NATO is dead.
While Russia is militarily weakened, and in my opinion, no match for the combined armies of free European nations, Russia has nuclear weapons.
The center of gravity for a military response to Russian aggression in Europe beyond Ukraine is Germany, and Germany lacks a nuclear deterrent.
Putin may calculate that he can win a "limited" nuclear war by launching nuclear strikes against military targets in Germany, convinced that France and Britain will not risk retaliation against their cities by striking Russia.
If I were the European Union, I'd arm Germany with nuclear weapons yesterday. Give them a credible deterrent to make Putin think twice. It doesn't eliminate the risk, but I think it may reduce it significantly. Of course, there's the German political situation with an ascendant far right that may roll over for Putin if it achieves power, and will likely oppose any effort to arm Germany with nuclear weapons, which may give it enough political allies to achieve power.
So it's not a no-brainer.
But make no mistake. Trump has surrendered to Putin. In the analogy of WW II, Putin is Hitler, Xi is Tojo and Trump is Mussolini.
We are now living in a world dominated by authoritarian regimes backed with nuclear weapons.
Everything is different now.
✍️ Reply by emailTick Tock
07:32 Sunday, 1 March 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 19.51°F Pressure: 1026hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 11.61mph
Words: 231
I had insomnia on Friday night, so I was awake when I saw the BBC report that Trump had announced an attack on Iran. And so I just got out of bed and spent the rest of the night trying to follow events in the Middle East. Reporting was scant at best. At about 0530, I got in the recliner and napped for an hour because we were scheduled for a session with our personal trainer at 0800.
We went. I worked out. Went home and continued doom-scrolling.
There is so much to say about this, but I think the single most relevant thing to me, and citizens of the United States, is that Trump continues to act as a dictator. This is a grotesque, unconstitutional abuse of power. But it just gets swallowed up in the maelstrom of intentional chaos surrounding this administration.
Bear that in mind when you read this report from Politico.
Trump will attempt to cancel, subvert, overturn or otherwise thwart the mid-term elections. DHS's "detention centers" and "deportation camps," will be used to incarcerate citizens rounded up in mass arrests.
I don't know how to stop him. Congress sure won't. I'm not confident he'd follow any orders from the Supreme Court, assuming a relevant case could be brought before them in time.
This is going to happen.
This gets worse before it gets better.
✍️ Reply by email