caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

In all three of these "scandals" the biggest, most important facts are ignored, while the most vocal advocates focus almost exclusively on the minutia.

For Russiagate, the idea that $100K of puppy memes on Facebook would overturn a multi-billion dollar election is comically absurd. Russiagate enthusiasts almost never talked about how ridiculous this looked from a big picture view..

Something/Someone Old

My Something Old today is African groundnut stew, often known as Maafe in West Africa.

I consider Hyman Minsky to be the last, great economist. His most significant discovery is that "stability breeds instability". To paraphrase, the longer a market is stable, the more unstable elements accumulate.
He went on to describe the three phases of a market as such:

This error cannot be corrected, at least by me, so I am doing frantic copypasta - it will be up pronto, thanks for your patience

Afghanistan's reputation of being the Graveyard of Empires is actually a new thing.
You could say it started with Mahmud Hotak in 1722, when his Afghan army marched into Persia and ended the Safavid Empire.
Next came the British.

Homesteads, Farms, and Hanging on to Harmony

Have you noticed how the grocery store shelves seem rather thin? Not as bad as right after the start of the pandemic, but a slow steady drip of missing items and a rather rapid rise in prices is happening in my area. The last couple of weeks I've been suggesting getting to know your area farmers and producers. We've recently met a few around our neighborhood. We're now buying milk (sold "for pets") from a farm a couple of miles down the road. I've made contact with a pastured chicken producer who often runs workshops. As grocery store shelves thin out, knowing your local producers might be a good idea. So I thought it would be fun to visit some farms and producers this week and celebrate working with nature and enjoying the bounty. Our summer harvests have been plentiful (Not pictured: peppers, peas, figs, and okra)

Here is an Imaginary Scenario that explains the facts we have been allowed to see.

Trump/Biden and 70%+ of all Americans wanted out of Afghanistan. The US Military wanted to keep a significant prescence in Afghanistan.

The Taiban wanted us out of Their Country.. The Taliban held the stronger hand. Negotiations commenced.