Thursday, January 12, 2023
In bed @ 10, awake at 5:30, back to sleep till 7:10, after dreams of my St. Francis parish friends, Roland Wright some piece of equipment with a Briggs & Stratton enginefrom the parish and now it wouldn't start, other riders of the church van in the dream, 34 degrees out, high of 36 expected with wind at 13 mph from N, gusts up to 28 mph expected this afternoon & evening. Sunrise at 7:21, sunset 4:38, 9+17
CPAP Another good night with the new 'puffer' mask, 7 hours, 34 minutes, seal score 20/20.
Documentgate. With classified documents now unearthed at Joe Biden's private office and in the garage of his home in Wilmington, Delaware, I'm thinking that the chances of Trump being indicted for his possession of classified docs is about zero. Obstruction is still possible, but not the underlying wrongful conduct. Time will tell. Merrick Garland will hold presser around noon today. Special counsel? Referral to Chicago US Attorney More info re when Penn Biden Center docs were discovered, when NARA and DOJ notified. Republican House will investigate this like they did Benghazi with Hillary Clinton and private internet server for her emails. I'm remembering remark attributed to Barack Obama, perhaps apocryphally, "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up." And BTW, Biden's public statement yesterday about the document discoveries was unusually fumble-tongued, even for him. Stand back and standby. Initial document discovery was in early November, public disclosure was in early January. Stored in locked garage with his Corvette. Gotta wonder what an 80 year old guy is doing with a 'vette.'
Capabilities, dependencies, and vulnerabilities. Each morning for many years now I get out of bed, fix my coffee (now herbal tea), sit on my recliner, open my laptop and check on the world outside my home. This morning: no internet, no wifi! I restarted my MacBookAir a couple of times, but no luck. OMG, I'm alone with only my wonderful (sleeping) wife, hundreds of great books, multiple televisions and radios, local channels plus HBO Max, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, AppleTV+, Criterion, OVID, the PBS app, and oodles of food and water, but no internet😱😨😲😳😰 What's a person to do?!?! (I'm reminded of the W. C. Fields poster in Doloris McCrimmon's living room: "There I was, stranded in the jungle with nothing to sustain me but food and water.) As Geri woke up and asked me to 'push the button' on Mr. Coffee, I gave her the startling news, repaired to the basement, pushed the 'reset' buttons on our modem and router and voila!, problem solved. 😁😂😄😅😇 The experience reminds me again of how, with all the new technological capabilities we acquire, become habituated to and become dependent upon, we acquire new vulnerabilities. Computers, the internet and cyber world are the most prominent examples. How often have I thought that the retirement funds that we rely on are only digital data stored in some huge mainframes somewhere. Not money, not currency, not a means of exchange, not a precious metal, just digital data somewhere, capable of being hacked, capable of being embezzled, capable of being destroyed by software or microchip failure, by a solar superstorm or by an electromagnetic pulse e-bomb triggered by a hostile nation or terrorists. Not comforting thoughts but accurate. Ditto the effect of a forced national debt default caused by 'do or die' Republicans collapsing both equity and bond markets. Vulnerabilities abound in our 'advanced' world.
Related: Yesterday the young ophthalmologist who examined me and my cataract asked "Do you drive?" and I thought 'uh oh, is my driver's license in jeopardy?' I admitted I have trouble driving at night, and avoid it, especially in the Fox Point/Bayside area with no street lights and road construction going on with lane markers obscured or difficult to read, especially when the ground is wet.
CPP is acting up all morning.
B M O Harris Bank: "Notice of Hold" happily accepted the deposit of my required minimum distribution from a retirement account, received in today's mail. However, because the deposit exceeded $5,525, they gave me, with the receipt for the deposit, a "Notice of Hold" providing "we are delaying the availability of [the amount of the deposit in excess of $,525]] from this deposit. These funds will be available on the 7th business day after the day of your deposit." This is the first time this has happened to me with this bank. A quick online research revealed that all this is legal ( 12 CFR 229 "Availability of Funds and Collection of Checks (Regulation CC)." but not required. The hold, BTW, is permissible even in the case of government checks. eyA bank "may withhold" not a bank "shall" or "must" withhold. So I am left wondering why this bank, with whom I have had a customer relationship for more years than I can remember, is withholding my money for almost a week and a half calendar days. I can be sure that as soon as the deposited check clears, i.e., is paid, by its issuer, B M O Harris will treat the money as its own, i.e. will invest it for its own purposes. It all reminds me yet again of what an inherently slippery business banking is, in which customer deposits are accounted as liabilities and money lent out to customers are accounted as assets. In fact, I have no intention of withdrawing any amount greater than $5,525 from this deposit in the next 7 business days but it galls me that the bank will be free to use my money to make more money for itself while it denies me the same ability. It's another example of America's Golden Rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.
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