Fresh and locally sourced food.

 It's nice when you go to local coffee shops and delis, to have fresh food and pastries. But when they run out, they need a backup. There's a coffee shop in downtown Portland who has run out of pastries twice when I've gone there. I need some pastry with my coffee. That's how I get my sweets instead of sugar in the coffee. So if you run out, just send someone down to a convenience store and grab some Lil' Debbie's or Hostess stuff. A couple twinkies or cupcakes aren't going to kill us.

80-20

 80% of the sentient beings in the Universe are the doers: they manufacture, operate, serve. They keep things going day in and day out. 10% are the ego leaders. They haven't a clue. I'm not saying they don't do stuff. They drop bombs, make speeches, etc., but don't do anything worth doing and the doers usually have to clean up the mess. The last 10% are the activists who actually think they can changes things. 

And it's always been like this since we lived in caves. And I'm pretty sure it's like this throughout the Universe.

College coaches

 So Trump has a new executive order to reign in new-found player freedoms. His buddy, Nick Sabin and other rich coaches rode the gravy train for decades while the players got nothing. They want a return to the old days with a federal anti-trust exemption to restrict player eligibility to 5 years and only one transfer. 

They'll never get this because players will sue against anything to block their freedom. My opinion is any student is enrolled in at least one class at a college should be eligible for as many years as they want to play. My opinion, also, is that no adults should be involved with sports until the pro level. Players should run everything through college. Adults ruin everything good about kids sports.

War is all about the money

 There hasn't been a war in history that hasn't been about someone making money. All that patriotic stuff is BS. Even WWII, our business people didn't want to get pushed out of exploiting the Philippines and Asia by the Japanese, so FDR put the screws to them until they attacked us. 

Now Trump is letting Russia deliver oil to Cuba so his buddy Putin can make some rubles. And Trump will bomb Iran's power plants and bridges so guess who can sell them the parts to build them back, Putin. It's just all a racket. Now Trump wants a $1.5 trillion military budget to replace all the hardware he's wasted on Iran. 

Opening Day

 I know there's a lot of crap going on in the world, most of it caused by the crap master himself. But it's opening night for the Mariners and I'm going to enjoy it.

Slanted stories

 The Oregonian had a story today comparing different grocery stores for the cheapest prices. But it was mostly based on name brands, except for Trader Joe's which mostly has their in house brand.

But if people are worried about high prices, why would they buy name brands? Why didn't they use house brands for all the stores. Costco gas their Kirkland brand, Safeway has their Signature brand, Target, WinCo and Kroger have their own brand. 

It looks like the Oregonian wanted to make it look like things are worse than they are. I buy 95% WinCo brand and most of my income is Social Security and things aren't that bad. And if most people are still buying brand names, things are definitely not that bad.

Also watched an ABC news show today hosted by Martha Radditz talking about tariffs. She was asking the administration spokesman why Trump is keeping to tariffs when the polls say Americans don't like them. Now I have no love lost for Trump and I'm sure he should be in jail for something, but some of the stuff the administration is doing make sense.

Now as for as imports go, no one is forcing people to buy anything or companies to import anything. So if they are, that's on them. Also, Congress should be setting tax and tariff policy, but Speaker Mike Johnson is a wimp. So the country has to get the money from somewhere to pay the bills. If Congress isn't going to balance the budget, Trump is getting money from tariffs.

Prime Directive

 I always envisioned that when Russia and us loosed our missiles, the Arctic natives would see the missiles criss cross each other, chuckle to themselves and get on with their walrus hunt. 

But here we are dragging them into the fray by our money-laundering president. 

Our path should be like the prime directive in Star Trek: non-interference in other cultures. 

But no, were going to drill down through a mile of ice for minerals and drill for oil in the sea and leave their coastal waters sterile from oil spills and mineral tailings. Then Trump will probably let the people starve to death. 

If they have an election and want to affiliate with the U S., fine, but I think they'd realize as every other state knows is that being affiliated with Washington,D.C. is no picnic. 

We can only hope that if Trump tries his military take over, there will be a huge geo-magnetic storm that that throws the whole operation into chaos.

And there's not going to be any hate the war, support the troops in this one, because they're all volunteers and if any go, the blood's on their hands, too.

We've already screwed over the natives in the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Can't we leave Greenland alone?