Presence

 Our Central PA temps are predicted to climb up into the mid to upper 40s (F) today.  The snow showers that were forecast for Friday are now rain showers.  Does this mean our warm-up has begun?  I don't see any reason why we shouldn't believe so.  I'm fine with that.

Since I do drink the occasional glass of wine, people have asked me if there was a specific wine I prefer and I always tell them red, though the occasional dry white is fine.  The vintner I prefer is Josh Cellars, so much so, I've set myself up as a member with a drop shipment happening every 2 months.  Yesterday I received my first shipment.  When I opened the door, the UPS driver looked down and, upon seeing Howie said, "Oh, you have a different dog."  The same driver had delivered a box of wine a year ago.  At that time he'd tried to give Lily a biscuit and she refused.  Isn't that an interesting point to remember?

I saw a really good movie last night.  "Presence," directed by Steven Soderbergh.  It's not really a ghost story, and yet it is.  A family moves into a house only to discover there is a presence already there.  Since this is a Soderbergh film, the family is dysfunctional, with the mother doting on her son, and the father doting on his daughter, and of course, there is the Presence... just who is that?

And, as we all should have been expecting, yesterday was another day of Chaos with the Orange Anus playing host.  Surprisingly, not everybody knows this, but around 3 PM every Medicaid portal in every state shut down.  This meant that no claims could be filed, and probably more important, no claims could be paid.  Health providers were angry as wasps who nest has been attacked.  Two hours later the portals were turned back on.  Orangey's administration says the outage was accidental.  Me?  I think they floated a trial balloon to get a reaction.  They learned that if they do something so stupid again, they're going to be faced with open hostility.  Curiously, at about the same time, Mike Johnson, the Idiotic Speaker of the House said Republicans would be willing to work with Democrats on the debt ceiling.  Coincidence?  Orangey is learning that if Congress won't put up guardrails, the American people will.

That brings me to Inflection Points.  When historians look at the world, they see certain points that change the direction of society.  Often they lead to wars.  One thing is always true, there is no going back to what was before.  The last major Inflection Point was the French Revolution in which the ruling class, the oligarchs, so to speak, were on the losing side.  In fact, authoritarianism has always lost.  I suspect that these Inflection Points happen mostly because Authoritarians never, ever learn from their past mistakes.