@Socialprogressive I think I have you beat in the cynical department. I do hope that RFKJr could get in there and make some real changes. However, the cynic says wouldn’t that be just our government’s style to use a supposed “reformer” to give us hope and then use him to do more damage? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…….

both Biden and Trump have a major dementia episode during their debate. That way there would be no denying both of these clowns are way past their expiration date and are no longer fit enough to run around the block let alone run the country. I know, it's a pipe dream, but one can hope.

@enhydra lutris

I don't understand my ladybug situation. Many years I have found them nesting in the tiny space between my door and doorframe. I sometimes see them flitting around my bedroom, yet even more rarely outside. I don't know how to remedy their transition except to carefully try to catch them and release them outside. I wonder where they disappear to? I think I have to read about their habits.

a few, now and then, here and there. I've already stumbled across two, so I can't say that things are unusual here in that regard. No mucho aphids yet, either, though they, in part, seem to depend on what we have planted, which, right now, isn't much. Leaf miners, we have in spades, on/in the chard. Any folutions to them would be greatly appreciated.

There is something about our political system. Remember that Bill Clinton was the first Boomer president, preceeded by a bunch of aged out folks like rancid ronnie. Now it's time for the next cohort to step up, but the system favors the elderly. There's at least a master's thesis in that somewhere for anybody who wants to dig into it.

be well and have a good one

@snoopydawg Doctorow's opinion on Russian affairs always has to be taken into account. As far as the agreement goes, I think parts of it are craftily worded. It is a military agreement as far as it goes. Would DPRK troops become in effect mercenaries for Russia in Ukraine? I've heard discussions of North Koreans being used as labor forces maybe to rebuild Ukraine, or provide labor in Russia as they now do.

However, Doctorow's comment that North Korea doesn't need ICBMs or improved missile technology (reentry vehicles, decoys etc), because they have Russian backing at this point from the agreement is somewhat misleading. First of all, if push comes to shove, Russia could provide North Korea with all kinds of support and resources, technology, fuel, food, military equipment, spare parts, etc. But if North Korea attacked Seoul or Gyeonggido, with 10 million and 13.4 million people respectively within range, not including Chungcheong or territory further south in range of super large guided artillery rockets, or ballistic missiles, a conflict arising to this level, will trigger a response from the US that in turn may draw a nuclear response probably from the NK side first.

I really don't think, Russia wants any part of the above. I doubt China does either. Russia could play the same game the US is playing with Ukraine, and stand aside (like Stalin did during the Korean conflict). The Russians could conceivably watch North Korea basically destroy elements of the US military infrastructure in Japan and South Korea all by itself and in turn be destroyed. What is the US going to do if Russia and China haven't directly participated in the conflict? This is why the official US representation in South Korea has become somewhat reasonable lately, advising the far right Yoon administration to act with restraint, maybe not act at all in the military sense. One really doesn't know what the Russians would do. That's the advantage the Russian North Korean military agreement provides.

The US isn't alone in Northeast Asia, the Japanese MSDF (navy) is a substantial component of military forces in the region and the ruling LDP administration shares US geostrategic objectives against China, Russia, and North Korea. South Korean land and air forces are significant but their footprint is limited making them vulnerable. Many if not most South Koreans are not interested in expanding their security problems from the North Korean threat, to a more general anti-China, anti-Russian orientation. The Japanese military component of the alliance with the US will grow in the next few years. The LDP leadership in Japan is very much in tune with the US Indo-Pacific objectives. It is the South Korean component of the tri lateral partnership that is quite rickety and may not survive the Yoon administration.

I posted some tweets yesterday on the WH saying that Biden’s freezing are deep fakes. Of course the corporate media is playing along.

@humphrey

feeding-trough frenzy for the consulting/grifter class is now well under way. What an unutterable waste: no one with their mind made up is going to change it, no matter what the grifters put out on social media or the teevee. And I suspect that very few of the undecideds and apathetic will bother to vote at all.

Why would they? There's nothing to vote *for*. Orange-man-bad is not much of a motivator, when it is clear that undead-corpse-meat-puppet-bad is equally true. And more and more people are coming to understand that every day.

Not a fan.

dementia Joe appear to having a full deck.

Exclusive: US President Joe Biden's main re-election SuperPAC is raising millions of dollars to try to solve a problem vexing Democrats: how to compete with Republican Donald Trump's social media machine that spits out a wall of viral videos https://t.co/aDJZ3mPioe

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 20, 2024