Morning Update: 06/11/24

How the hell is it the middle of June and it’s 46 degrees outside this morning? The dogs were snuggled up so tight against me this morning, that for a moment I thought someone liked me (until Ham wagged his tail). This cool front is supposed to leave by tomorrow, but damn, I’m going to have to put on long sleeves to take the dogs out in a bit!

The good news is that I did make it to the doctor yesterday. My glucose is down considerably, so there’s no need for insulin at this time. My blood pressure was still stupidly high, though, so we’re going back on Jardiance to address that and latent heart and stroke issues. We’ll check everything again in three months unless the numbers start getting high again.

Shortly after getting back home, my check hit the bank so I was able to order the groceries that we needed. The biggest challenge was trying to get all the frozen food into one little freezer. Since there’s not a store that carries fresh food within walking distance, we use a lot of frozen veggies to make sure we’re not going to get scurvy or anything like that. You wouldn’t think that would take a lot of space, but it does. Still, it’s a problem I’m glad to deal with. Seeing an empty fridge/freezer is rather frightening.

Another bit of good news came this morning as Hamas says it accepts UN-backed Gaza truce plan. There are still details to work out, and Israel has to stop bombing the living hell out of everything in Gaza, but after eight months of the two sides trading war crimes, I think the rest of the world is ready for them to stop. Since they’ve been behaving like spoiled children, perhaps we put them in separate corners of the region and make them sit facing a wall for a couple of centuries until they learn their lesson. Do you think that might work?

After going all day yesterday saying that his plane was missing, officials now confirm that Malawi vice president Chilima was killed in a plane crash. Malawi isn’t in the news a lot and their politics rarely get lively enough for the rest of the world to notice. However, this is the second high-ranking government official to die in an aircraft “accident” in the past month. You’ll remember that Iran’s president was killed in a helicopter “accident” a couple of weeks ago. I hope this isn’t the start of a trend.

The FBI’s latest data shows a ‘historic’ drop in crime across the US, citing a decrease in violent crime of 15% for the first three months of the year. From a pure numbers perspective, this is great news. However, perception is reality on this issue and what ultimately matters is whether people feel safe. This is still going to be a huge hot-button topic for election campaigns and expect to see some absolutely ridiculous claims from the far right. The national media is partially complicit here, sensationalizing every shooting they can find. The fact that there are fewer of them gets lost in the headlines that are part of making people feel unsafe.

One more thing and I’ll shut up for a few minutes. ABC News is reporting that the Biden administration plans to ban medical debt from credit reports. On one hand, this is good news for millions of Americans. However, it raises a couple of issues. First, why not eliminate medical debt completely with a national healthcare plan that simply covers everything? Wipe money-grubbing insurance companies and greedy hospital executives off the map and the debt goes away. Second, the change doesn’t have the full weight of the law. It exists in a rule change within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That means a subsequent president could have the rule overturned, which puts everyone in a precarious position. The economy needs people to have better credit scores, though, so that sales of big-ticket items such as homes and cars can increase. Take the win for now, but be careful that it’s not a real solution to the cost of healthcare in the US.

Oh yeah, I’m looking at my web stats and noticing that no one has looked at the article I posted yesterday afternoon, “Dealing With Adobe’s New ToS.” I thought for sure that my creative friends would be all over this one. I’m a bit disappointed. I included pictures and everything! LOL!

For some reason, today doesn’t feel like a Tuesday. I’m getting more of a Wednesday vibe, except that Kat’s here, which doesn’t happen on Wednesday mornings. The lawn needs to be mowed, but we’ll have to wait until the temperature outside at least hits 60. I’m not sending the kids out in coats!

You and I both need more coffee. Fill your cup and maybe I’ll have a surprise later this morning.